Bangladesh reports outbreak of H5N1 bird flu at poultry farm

Bangladesh reported an outbreak of the highly contagious H5N1 bird flu virus at a poultry farm in Dhaka, the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) said on Monday (Jan 23), citing a report from the Bangladeshi agriculture ministry.

Of 3,000 Sonali type poultry at risk from the outbreak, 732 died from the virus and the rest were slaughtered, according to the report posted by the Paris-based OIE.

The farm was located in Dhamrai, a division of the capital city of Dhaka, the report said.

Different strains of bird flu have been spreading across Europe and Asia since late last year, leading to mass culling of poultry in certain countries and some human deaths in China.

This prompted the World Health Organisation to call on all countries on Monday (Jan 23) to monitor closely outbreaks of the deadly virus in birds and poultry and to report promptly any human cases that could signal the start of a flu pandemic.