Turkey company says its working with officials

On Jan. 15, the Indiana State Board of Animal Health, in conjunction with the United States Department of Agriculture, announced the discovery of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in a turkey farm in Dubois County.

That 100 farms tested over 24 hours came back negative was a sign control measures appear to be working, said Denise Derrer, spokeswoman for the Indiana State Board of Animal Health.

The agency says the strain (H7N8) is different than the ones that forced millions of birds to be killed during last year’s outbreak. At the turkey farm, 60,000 birds were euthanized. But it isn’t clear whether the mild winter weather played a role in the current outbreak, state and federal officials said. No one has been able to figure out for sure how the H5N2 bird flu virus got into the domestic bird flock in 2015, or how it spread from farm to farm.

While there are bird flu vaccines for poultry, there is yet to be one for H7N8 in the US, with officials stressing that flu viruses undergo wild mutations and every vaccine should be created fresh for every strain.

Indiana’s poultry industry ranks fourth nationally in turkey production, first in duck production, third in eggs, and is a significant producer of broiler chickens. But some producers tested farms outside that radius – a few even in IL near the in border, Derrer said.

Avian flu arrived in the U.S.in 2015 via migratory birds, but how it is spread to birds inside confined barns continues to be a topic of research for poultry officials and farmers.

The H7N8 strain is highly contagious for birds; the USDA said no human infections with the viral strain have been detected.

State veterinarian Bret Marsh, DVM, said in the statement that the strain was unique to in and the nation and isn’t related to the strains that struck the upper Midwest previous year or to an outbreak last May in a backyard flock in northeastern Indiana. Since then, the agency has developed a preparedness and response plan to address future outbreaks of bird flu. “This is a very poultry-intense area of the state…so we don’t want to minimize the importance of this at all”.