Yesterday, APHIS National Veterinary Services Laboratories announced that it has made available 239 genetic sequences from the US H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b influenza virus recently found in samples associated with the ongoing highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) outbreak in poultry and wild birds. 

The same clade is responsible for the recent H5N1 event in dairy cattle. 

PHIS routinely publishes influenza genetic sequence data on the Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data (GISAID). However, in the interest of public transparency and ensuring the scientific community has access to this information as quickly as possible to encourage disease research and development to benefit the US dairy industry, APHIS is also rapidly sharing raw sequence data to the National Institute of Health’s National Library of Medicine, National Center for Biotechnology Information. 

Sequences posted are from cattle, cats, chickens, skunk, racoon, grackle, blackbird, and goose. APHIS will continue making additional raw genetic sequences available on a rolling basis at Home - SRA - NCBI (nih.gov); use the search term “WGS of H5N1”.