Cape Town, Aug 2 || Authorities in South Africa's Western Cape have confirmed new outbreaks of bird flu in the province, urging the public to "stay alert," but "not alarmed."
"The Western Cape Department of Agriculture wishes to alert poultry farmers and the general public to new outbreaks of high pathogenicity avian influenza, commonly referred to as bird flu," said the department in a statement released on Friday night.
Recent outbreaks have been confirmed in chickens in the North West and Mpumalanga provinces, along with a single outbreak in the Western Cape, detected in farmed ducks near Paarl in early July, the statement said, adding that the affected ducks, along with related flocks of chickens, were voluntarily and humanely culled to prevent further spread of the disease, news agency reported.
In addition to poultry cases, bird flu has caused fatalities among great white pelicans in the Cape Town area. "These are the first wild bird cases reported in the Western Cape since April 2024 and the first mass mortalities since 2022," the statement said.