A new strain of bird flu (highly pathogenic avian influenza, or HPAI) has been detected on a duck farm in California.
The World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) reported the outbreak of the new strain, H5N9, earlier this week on its website.
The more common H5N1 strain was also found at the same farm, which is located in Merced County, according to reports.
“This is the first confirmed case of HPAI H5N9 in poultry in the United States,” WOAH wrote.
Health agencies are conducting “comprehensive epidemiological investigations and enhanced surveillance,” according to the statement.
David J. Cennimo, an associate professor of medicine and pediatrics in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, said this new strain could point to the “adaptability” of influenza viruses.
“Birds are very susceptible to avian influenza in general. Some strains of the virus are mild, some deadly,” he told Fox News Digital.
H5N9 has been seen in the past, Cennimo noted, and generally causes mild illness in birds.
“The ducks in California, however, were dying,” he said. “Genetic testing showed this H5N9 was different from historical samples and was, in fact, a reassortment.”
(Reassortment is the process by which influenza viruses swap gene segments, according to the National Institutes of Health.)
“Researchers monitor them, as the bird flus have evolved to become human global pandemic strains multiple times in the past,” he told Fox News Digital. “In order to infect humans, they need to mutate in order to adapt from a bird to human host.”
Researchers become concerned when there are large outbreaks of bird flus in poultry farms, according to Glanville.
In addition to interfering with the food supply, having many infected birds in proximity to pigs, cows and humans greatly increases the risk of mutations that could spill over into “mammalian infections.”
“Currently, this is the main concern for H5N1,” he said. “Other reports of bird flu are worth monitoring but are currently low risk.”
To date, there have been 67 confirmed cases of human bird flu in the U.S. and one death, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
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