Frigid air slows efforts to euthanize turkeys in Indiana

Derrer said Thursday morning that laboratories determined the strain of all ten infected farms in Dubois County was H7N8 — though she said later that additional tests were being done on one of those farms.

Indiana State Board of Animal Health spokeswoman Denise Derrer said Sunday that 100 farms tested over 24 hours came back negative.

Last year’s avian flu outbreak was aided by similar movement on the boots of farmers visiting their neighbors, Meckes said.

Sam Custer, with Ohio State University in Darke County, is watching the situation closely on Ohio’s border with in in the heart of Ohio’s poultry industry. “We are very concerned and trying to figure out strategies to contain it”, Derrer said of the outbreak.

Surveillance was conducted in a six-mile radius, a best practice, explains Myers.

Still, people who interacted with the infected turkeys were quickly placed under a new monitoring plan developed in response to last year’s outbreak, said Michael Jhung, a medical officer at the CDC.

State officials feared that migrating birds would bring the virus to North Carolina in the fall and that humans would help spread it among both commercial and small backyard flocks.

Avian influenza (AI) viruses are classified by a combination of two groups of proteins: hemagglutinin or “H” proteins, of which there are 16 (H1-H16), and neuraminidase or “N” proteins, of which there are nine (N1-N9).

The strain of bird flu that has struck in IN is considered less virulent to the highly contagious or “highly pathogenic” strain that hit Iowa past year.

Producers have been discussing the new outbreak in a series of conference calls since they first became aware of the in case late yesterday, said John Brunnquell, president of Egg Innovations Inc., which produces free-range eggs in farms across the Midwest.

Still, the new strain found in the United States is considered highly pathogenic, meaning it is especially deadly to poultry.

The news of the case of bird flu was a boost for Cal-Maine Foods Inc., the largest US egg supplier.

We’re told the farmers will be compensated for their loss. On Saturday, nine more farms were found to be carrying a low pathogenic, or less deadly, form of the virus. IN ranks first in duck production, fourth in turkey production and third in eggs in the U.S.