Poultry Movement and Sustained HPAI Risk in Cambodia

Abstract

The threat posed by highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 viruses to humans remains significant, given the continued occurrence of sporadic human cases (518 human cases in 15 countries) with a high case fatality rate (approximately 60%; Table 13.1), the endemicity in poultry populations in several countries, and the potential for reassortment with the newly emerging 2009 H1N1 pandemic strain. Additionally, the connectedness of animal networks can lead to large and widespread epidemics of disease and an understanding of human and animal movement and their contact structures could be used to design more targeted surveillance activities and inform models of disease spread, which could result in more cost-effective disease prevention and control (Dent et al. 2008; Green et al. 2008; Kiss et al. 2008; Truscott et al. 2007). However, despite their likely role in the circulation and spread of HPAI in South East Asia, little is understood about the poultry market chains, legal or illegal trade of poultry or the types, and frequencies of contact that exist between rural people raising poultry, local markets, and large-national poultry markets in the major cities.