United States deploys newly minted bird flu plan to protect humans

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

The weather has frozen the foam that kills the birds.

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The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) said there were no known cases of the H7N8 strain infecting people.

Dubois County raises more than one million birds each year and officials say they have had to euthanize more than 200,000 birds so far.

The H7N8 strain is different than the H5N2 virus that led to the deaths of 48 million birds last summer.

Farmers also have strengthened cleaning and security practices in a bid to keep out the virus, with many requiring workers to change their shoes before entering barns and barring delivery trucks from getting too close to poultry houses. But even after euthanizing hundreds of thousands of birds, farms are not yet in the clear.

The particular strain of flu infecting birds is not severe, which is making it hard to detect and easier to spread. 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. Officials also are looking at whether workers traveling between farms, wind or other methods may have spread the H7N8 strain.

Limited genetic data from preliminary diagnostic tests last week showed this H7N8 virus originated from North America, while last year’s strains had roots in Europe and Asia, officials said.

Dubois County has the first case of confirmed bird flu in the United States since June. Everyone hopes this outbreak doesn’t turn into what happened in 2015.

“Producers have been discussing the new outbreak in a series of conference calls since they first became aware of the in case late yesterday”, John Brunnquell, Egg Innovations president, said in a statement.

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