Coronavirus-Stricken China Culling Chickens amid New Outbreak of Bird Flu

TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Chinese authorities are culling thousands of chickens after an outbreak of the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of bird flu in Hunan Province, which neighbors the coronavirus-hit province of Hubei.

The outbreak took place at a farm near Shaoyang city, in China’s central Hunan province, the country’s Ministry of Agriculture announced on Saturday. 4,500 of the farm’s 7,850 chickens have died from the illness, and local authorities have culled nearly 20,000 birds to contain its spread, RT reported.

H5N1 is an avian flu virus that causes severe respiratory disease in birds, and is contagious to humans. No human victims have yet been reported, but the World Health Organization (WHO) states that more than 350 people have died from the virus since it first spread to humans in Hong Kong in the late 1990s.

H5N1 is a far deadlier virus to those who contract it. Nearly 60 percent of H5N1 patients die after contracting the sickness, compared to two percent of Wuhan coronavirus (2019 nCoV) patients thus far.