While China continues to lock down more cities with populations in the millions, Reuters is now reporting that China is in the midst of yet another potentially deadly outbreak.
* China reported an outbreak of a highly pathogenic strain of H5N1 bird flu at a farm in Shaoyang city of the southern province of Hunan, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said on Saturday.
* The case occurred on a farm with 7,850 chickens, 4,500 of which have died of the bird flu.
* The authorities have culled 17,828 poultry following the outbreak.
Daily Mail reports – The outbreak was initially reported at a farm in Shaoyang city in the southern province of Hunan, south of the epicenter of the Coronavirus in Wuhan.
The farm has now been sealed off and sterilized.
The bird flu has been classed as highly pathogenic because of the number of birds that have died from the disease.
According to the NHS, the H5N1 strain of the virus has ’caused concern’ in recent years.
Although the disease doesn’t easily infect humans and it is hard to spread it from human to human, several people have been infected around the world and died.
When people do become infected by the disease, the rate of mortality is about 60 percent, according to the World Health Organisation.
People can become infected by coming into close contact with infected live or dead birds, or H5N1-contaminated environments.
Shaoyang is about 302 miles from the central city of Wuhan, where the coronavirus outbreak began late last month.
The coronavirus death toll has now reached 305. Only one person has died outside of China, in the Philippines.
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