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1/ Worldwide, a #poultry-origin disease is causing high mortality in wild birds. The disease is called highly pathogenic avian #influenza (#HPAI). It is important to record the scale of wild bird mortality in order to help prevent such disasters in the future. Here is a thread. 
2/ In general, HPAI viruses emerge in intensive poultry production systems by mutation from relatively innocent viruses (aptly called ‘low pathogenic avian influenza viruses). Of 39 known HPAI mutation events detected, 37 are from such poultry farms.
3/ The cause of the current wild bird mortality is the descendant of a HPAI virus that emerged in a commercial farm of domestic geese in Guangdong, China, in 1996. The virus spread widely across poultry farms in Asia, and then spilled over into wild waterbirds.
