156000 chickens added to list of poultry being euthanized

A worker is sprayed as part of the decontamination process Sunday…

More than 245,000 turkeys in Southwestern Indiana are slated to be killed in an effort to prevent the spread of the virus, but the weather is creating some problems.

Avian influenza cases have recently been identified in France and Asia.

The federal government sprang into action on Friday after confirmation overnight that the virus had hit an IN turkey farm.

“The risk to the public is very low, and there is no food safety concern”, state officials said. Billions were lost in the American poultry industry past year after a strain of the bird flu killed up to 48 million turkeys and chickens. “When we have livestock production, we have disease”, Olson says. North American viruses have typically posed less of a threat to humans than viruses from the Asian Avian H5N1 lineage, said Carol Cardona, an avian flu expert at the University of Minnesota. Officials try to kill infected birds within 24 hours of diagnosis. Officials also are looking at whether workers traveling between farms, wind or other methods may have spread the H7N8 strain. But there is no business interruption insurance that covers a farm’s lost income from animal disease and little other economic help beyond the government’s bird replacement payment.

Now a new strain, H7N8, is sweeping chicken and turkey farms in Indiana.

Past animal viruses usually spread in spring, and it’s unclear why the H7N8 strain has taken hold in January. “Sampling of wild birds in the affected areas in IN will most likely help in determining the source of the infection”.

The most immediately noticeable impact has been on export markets.

In Indiana, the USDA quickly deployed personnel and equipment to assist the state with culling birds and testing nearby flocks, said Bret Marsh, Indiana’s state veterinarian. All infected sites are in Dubois County.