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New strain of avian Influenza increasing in Asia

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is warning a new vaccine-resistant strain of the H5N1 Avian Influenza is spreading across Asia. The FAO is urging increased surveillance and preparedness for a flare-up of this new strain this fall as birds migrate.

Called H5N1 -2.3.2.1, the variant is currently in China, Vietnam and Cambodia where it has claimed eight lives. It has also been found in Nepal, Mongolia, Romania, Bulgaria and Israel and poses an immediate threat to Thailand and Malaysia followed by the Korean peninsula and Japan.

Another U.N. agency, the World Health Organization says a new mutation of a virus is nothing new, there have been a number of variants of the H5 virus to-date. A WHO official says it just means “we have to change the vaccine.”