A work station can be seen set up at the entrance to a commercial turkey farm in Dubois, Ind. on Monday, Jan. 18, 2016.
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Since Saturday, there have been no new cases in the Dubois County avian flu outbreak.
According to the release, this is the first detection of a highly pathogenic avian flu virus in the United States since June a year ago, which led to the depopulation of almost 50 million birds and became the most expensive agricultural emergency in US history.
The federal government sprang into action on Friday after confirmation overnight that the virus had hit an IN turkey farm, alerting other states to the danger and putting workers who might have been exposed to the virus under surveillance.
Health officials and animal experts are trying to contain the spread of a new and potentially more risky strain of bird flu.
About 10 farms in IN have been affected with the bird flu.
APHIS said IN officials have quarantined the additional farms, and culling has already begun. In addition, there are 155,000 egg-laying chickens that are NOT infected, but are being depopulated, again as a precaution. The rest are chickens that, while not infected, were considered to be in “dangerous contact” with an infected turkey flock.
Farmers also have strengthened cleaning and security practices in a bid to keep out the virus, with many requiring workers to change their shoes before entering barns and barring delivery trucks from getting too close to poultry houses.
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Derrer says workers are moving as fast as possible to kill the birds to prevent the virus from spreading. The Minnesota Board of Animal Health is monitoring the situation. But none of the cures are really that great; vaccines-though the USDA does have one-stop the farmer from being able to export the birds, because a vaccinated bird looks just like an infected bird in tests. “Industry and poultry producers have been doing a lot to strengthen their biosecurity so we are hopeful that as we respond very quickly to this virus that we can get it contained”. “Within in two days, we know if that infection is there or not”.
