All 400K birds at Indiana farms with bird flu killed

Testing at nearby farms in the wake of a highly pathogenic H7N8 avian flu outbreak that struck a turkey facility in southern in last week turned up a low-pathogenic version of the virus eight more farms, hinting that the virus mutated to a more lethal strain as it spread.

State and federal workers, low-level prison inmates and workers at the farms have been euthanizing more than 245,000 turkeys – plus the chickens – to prevent the virus’ spread. The first of the 10 farms saw a highly pathogenic form, which means infected birds were dying, while most of the other farms saw a low-pathogenic form that only made the birds sick. Multiple state agencies have been heavily focused for almost a year on the necessary steps in this type of event, including the State Board of Animal Health, Indiana State Department of Agriculture, Indiana Department of Homeland Security, Indiana Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory, Indiana Department of Environmental Management, Indiana State Poultry Association and several private sector partners.

Temperatures that dipped into the teens and single digits over the weekend stymied efforts to fill the affected poultry barns with the foam to a level just above the turkeys’ heads to suffocate them, said Denise Derrer of the Indiana State Board of Animal Health. Turkeys are being humanely euthanized on infected sites within 24 hours of diagnosis.

Indiana’s bird flu scare comes after Moody’s Investor Services claimed the U.S. poultry sector would be able to handle the outbreak of a new bird flu virus “better” in the future. But even after euthanizing hundreds of thousands of birds, farms are not yet in the clear. Control area flock tests continue to come back with negative results, meaning no virus was detected.

What happened to infected birds?

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

Shares of poultry producer Pilgrim’s Pride Corp. fell the most in more than two months after the announcement, and were 6.4 percent lower at $21.57 at 1:52 p.m.in NY.

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

Despite this, the strain is believed to be more contagious than the one that caused mass havoc to the USA poultry industry in the summer of 2015. “Heat-treated” products are excluded from the ban it added. In addition, it ranks first in duck production, and third in eggs.