Bird Flu in USA

New confirmed cases of bird flu first noticed in Indiana are spreading among flocks of chickens and turkeys in three states, resulting in tens of thousands of birds testing positive for the virus.

Birds from the infected flock will be culled and will not enter the food system, state officials said.

The outbreak is not expected to lower overall chicken production levels because thousands of farms raise chickens for Tyson, he said. Mickelson added that Tyson Foods’ chicken products are safe to eat.

Pennsylvania has not confirmed any avian influenza cases, but officials are warning poultry owners to "step up biosecurity efforts."

The United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has confirmed the presence of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in a non-commercial backyard flock (non-poultry) in Suffolk County, New York.

ReadyMom wrote:Pa. Agriculture Secretary issues warning to poultry owners about highly contagious bird flu
https://www.fox43.com/article/news/local/bird-flu-avian-pennsylvania-poultry-chickens-turkeys-prevention-efforts-cases-detected-found/521-ba20f67f-71ac-409a-89d6-496450be2cb7

Pennsylvania has not confirmed any avian influenza cases, but officials are warning poultry owners to "step up biosecurity efforts."

rick1 wrote:

ReadyMom wrote:Pa. Agriculture Secretary issues warning to poultry owners about highly contagious bird flu
https://www.fox43.com/article/news/local/bird-flu-avian-pennsylvania-poultry-chickens-turkeys-prevention-efforts-cases-detected-found/521-ba20f67f-71ac-409a-89d6-496450be2cb7

Pennsylvania has not confirmed any avian influenza cases, but officials are warning poultry owners to "step up biosecurity efforts."

After reading this, I went and checked my chickens, they look and act as mean as they normally do. Guess I'll check them every day now when I feed them and collect their eggs.

So far, highly pathogenic outbreaks have hit poultry in five states, and surveillance has detected the virus in 247 waterfowl along the eastern seaboard. The H5N1 strain implicated in the outbreaks is the Eurasian strain, which has triggered poultry outbreaks and wild bird detections in multiple parts of the world

There is a low risk of HPAI transmission to humans and, to date, there have been no known human infections in North America.

The United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has confirmed the presence of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in a backyard mixed species poultry flock in Franklin County, Kansas and a non-commercial backyard flock (non-poultry) in Mclean County, Illinois.

"Despite the fact that bird flu has now been detected in the backyard and commercial flocks in almost a quarter of U.S. states, including New York, Connecticut, Iowa, Indiana, Maine, Michigan, and Kentucky, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) maintained that the virus does not present a threat to public health."

Iowa, New York, and South Dakota reported more highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) outbreaks in poultry, most of them involving commercial flocks.

The latest outbreaks push the number of US poultry events to 60.

rick1 wrote:Colorado inmate test positive with bird flu, the first in the U.S., where's Fauci when you need him:
https://justthenews.com/nation/colorado-inmate-tests-positive-bird-flu-first-us

TRex2 wrote:

bird flu jumps to humans fairly often (easy jump), but rarely continues from there to the Human to Human transmission (difficult, second step), so we get a single case, or a small cluster, without any sort of epidemic.

Animal rights activists are up in arms over reports that a chicken farm in Iowa killed more than five million birds, after detecting a case of avian influenza, in what activists say was a gruesome culling method. The factory farm later dismissed the more than 200 workers it had tasked with slaughtering the hens, according to a report from The Guardian.

Dave58 wrote:

ReadyMom wrote:Egg-laying facility in Iowa kills 5.3 million chickens, fires 200-plus workers
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rembrandt-farms-iowa-avian-flu-kills-5-million-chickens-fires-workers/?intcid=CNM-00-10abd1h

Animal rights activists are up in arms over reports that a chicken farm in Iowa killed more than five million birds, after detecting a case of avian influenza, in what activists say was a gruesome culling method. The factory farm later dismissed the more than 200 workers it had tasked with slaughtering the hens, according to a report from The Guardian.

I will be the first to tell ya I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed , but could somebody pls explain how a factory farm gets bird flu to begin with ?? I thought they were required to wear protective suits and shoes just to enter the building.....

rick1 wrote:I will be the first to tell ya I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed , but could somebody pls explain how a factory farm gets bird flu to begin with ?? I thought they were required to wear protective suits and shoes just to enter the building.....

Bird flu can be transmitted through feed and water.

Example: A duck/bird has bird flu, lands in a bird feeder or lands in a pool of water, both of those can now be contaminated with bird flu.
...
P.S. Maybe those animal activists should have taken those chickens and had a big feast for themselves.

In our area, they are asking people to take down their bird feeders and bird baths, until further notice.

In our area, they are asking people to take down their bird feeders and bird baths, until further notice.

All of the maps I get only show the infections state by state. If we had maps that show county by county, we could get a better grip on where extreme measures, like removing bird feeders and baths, would be useful.

After declaring an AIPZ (Avian Influenza Protection Zone) across all of Great Britain last month, yesterday DEFRA announced new, stricter guidelines would go into effect on November 7th.

Avian influenza: Housing order to be introduced across England

A national housing order will be introduced across England on Monday 7 November making it a legal requirement to house flocks

From:Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs and Animal and Plant Health Agency Published 31 October 2022

Mandatory housing measures for all poultry and captive birds are to be introduced to all areas of England from 00:01 on Monday 7 November, following a decision by the United Kingdom’s Chief Veterinary Officer.

The housing measures legally require all bird keepers to keep their birds indoors and to follow stringent biosecurity measures to help protect their flocks from the disease, regardless of type or size.

The order will extend the mandatory housing measures already in force in the hot spot area of Suffolk, Norfolk and parts of Essex to the whole of England following an increase in the national risk of bird flu in wild birds to very high.

But often, despite their best efforts, we'd still see the virus spread from farm to farm. Migratory birds - once thought unlikely carriers of the virus (see 2014's Bird Flu Spread: The Flyway Or The Highway?) - became increasingly suspect.

But even flocks kept indoors, and protected by several layers of biosecurity, continue to succumb to the virus.

...

One recurring entry to this rogue's gallery of potential vectors is the common housefly, a pest which is frequently found in abundance in and around poultry farms and live bird markets.

While it wasn't its first mention in this blog, nearly 17 years ago in Cats and Dogs and Flies, Oh My!, we looked at a 2006 study (see Detection and isolation of highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza A viruses from blow flies collected in the vicinity of an infected poultry farm in Kyoto, Japan, 2004 by Kyoko Sawabe et al.) that found that at least 2 types of flies could carry the H5N1 virus.