US reports first outbreak of H5N9 bird flu in poultry

PARIS (Reuters) -The United States has reported its first outbreak of H5N9 bird flu in poultry on a duck farm in California, the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) said on Monday. U.S. authorities also detected the more common H5N1 strain on the same farm in Merced County, California, they said in a report to Paris-based WOAH, adding that the almost 119,000 birds on the farm had been killed by Dec. 2. Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), commonly called bird flu, has spread around