The Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development has announced that an outbreak of H5N8 highly pathogenic avian influenza was diagnosed in an egg production farm located east of the major city, Johannesburg in Gauteng Province. Small egg-production units in the RSA are vulnerable to END and HPAI given ongoing sale of live culled hens to traders.

The present case indicates that highly pathogenic avian influenza is present in the Republic of South Africa and in all probability was introduced by migratory birds.  Given the variable level of biosecurity, and the lack of national resources to control an infection such as HPAI, it is inevitable that the infection will affect both egg production and broiler-growing farms in the highly concentrated areas surrounding the major metropolitan areas in the central and northern provinces.

In 2017 farmers were forced to depopulate farms as a result of highly pathogenic avian influenza that also affected neighboring nations including Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe.