Chile's Agriculture and Livestock Service Wednesday reported 1,030 bird deaths due to avian flu in northern regions of the country, at the same time Europe goes through the worst-ever outbreak of the disease.
Peru and Ecuador last week declared three-month health emergencies because of outbreaks of bird flu after a wave of cases led to tens of millions of poultry being slaughtered in Europe and the United States.
British health authorities Friday reported what seems to be the first fatal case in humans of the H5N1 variant of bird flu, which rarely infects humans, but when it does, it has a mortality rate of about 60%.
All 10,500 turkeys will be culled at a farm in North Yorkshire, in England after bird flu was confirmed at the site. The H5N8 strain of avian influenza was found at a turkey fattening premises near Northallerton on Saturday.
Dutch authorities have culled some 190,000 chickens after a highly contagious strain of bird flu broke out in at least two poultry farms, the agriculture ministry said on Sunday.
Germany has reported an outbreak of the highly pathogenic H5N8 bird flu virus in a backyard in the southwestern part of the country, the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) said on Monday.
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 Sunday.
State of Iowa Governor Terry Branstad declared a state of emergency due to a rapidly expanding avian flu outbreak, saying the entire state was at risk from the spread of the disease.
Bird flu on a duck farm in northern England is the highly contagious H5N8 strain, the same form of the virus already discovered in Germany and the Netherlands, Britain's farm ministry confirmed on Tuesday.
Chinese scientists have confirmed for the first time that a new strain of bird flu that has killed 23 people in China has been transmitted to humans from chickens. In a study published online in the Lancet medical journal, the scientists echoed previous statements from the World Health Organization (WHO) and Chinese officials that there is as yet no evidence of human-to-human transmission of this virus.