Among the limitations of this study are the short
duration of our data collection (June 2010–March 2012)
and the fact that sampling was not spaced evenly
throughout the year. Although most of our sampling
was in the summer, the prevalence of H5N1 in Egyptian
poultry is highest during the cold winter months (Hassan
et al., 2013). Collecting more samples during this peak time
might have allowed us to detect H5N1 in Damietta
governorate. Furthermore, our small sample size of 16
villages in four governorates could limit the generalizability of our results. For example, the prevalence of
H5N1 in our cloacal swabs was 0.6%, which is similar to the
0.9% prevalence in backyard flocks reported by Kayali et al.
(2011), who sampled six governorates, but much lower than that of El-Zoghby et al. (2013), who sampled 24
governorates and found 10.5% prevalence.