New Strain of High-Pathogenic H5N1 Detected

This strain could be the one that sets it off. It apparently will lead to more poultry deaths, at least. Reuters, as always, is on top of it:

"HONG KONG (Reuters) - Scientists in Hong Kong and the United States have detected a new strain of H5N1 bird flu virus in China and warned it might have started another wave of outbreaks in poultry in Southeast Asia and move deeper into Eurasia.

The strain, called the "Fujian-like virus" because it was first isolated in China's southern Fujian province in March 2005, has increasingly been detected since October 2005 in poultry in six provinces in China, displacing other H5N1 strains.

The strain might also have become resistant to vaccines, which China began using on a large scale from September 2005 to protect poultry from H5N1, said the scientists.

The researchers are from the University of Hong Kong, including virologists Guan Yi and Malik Peiris, and Rob Webster of St Jude Children's Research Hospital in the United States."

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We throw vaccines and anti-virals at it and it keeps mutating around them. I can hardly wait for the next round of mass cullings. Sacks of dead birds on fire makes for good photo-journalism.