Nine more commercial turkey farms in Dubois County have tested positive for highly pathogenic avian influenza. Quarantine and depopulation began on Friday, according to Denise Derrer with the Indiana Board of Animal Health, “The infestation was confined to one building on an operation that has 10 barns”. Not all the 250,000 had yet been killed, Derrer said, though she did not have specific figures.
Advertisement
All 60,000 turkeys at the first farm where the bird flu was detected have been euthanized.
While there are bird flu vaccines for poultry, there is yet to be one for H7N8 in the USA, with officials stressing that flu viruses undergo wild mutations and every vaccine should be created fresh for every strain. The USDA confirmed the incident Friday morning, prompting workers to isolate the farm and start slaughtering the birds and destroying their carcasses.
Deaths in the flock triggered the testing at the Indiana Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory at Purdue University, and the USDA confirmed the findings today.
Signs of H7N8 avian flu in birds include sudden death, lack of energy, lack of appetite, decreased egg production, soft-shelled eggs, misshapen eggs and diarrhea. Since then, the agency has developed a preparedness and response plan to address future outbreaks of bird flu. Since the outbreak past year, and all the lessons learned from that, there has been a lot of good work to increase our preparatory efforts at the federal side, the state side, and the industry side.
McMillian said anyone involved with the poultry industry should review health and safety measures.
Avian influenza is typically spread by free-flying waterfowl like ducks, geese and shorebirds.
Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack said federal officials are working with state officials to clean up the situation, “We have dispatched teams to the area and will do our best to limit the infestation”.
Dr. Myers clarified that the virus strain is different from that of last year’s outbreak: the pathogenic H5N2 bird flu that killed around 48 million birds, caused traders to shun US poultry products, and drove up egg prices.
AI viruses are further classified by their pathogenicity (low or high) – the ability of a particular virus strain to produce disease in domestic chickens.
Advertisement
“They want to make sure it is not being spread”, she said.
