New strain of bird flu found at Indiana turkey farm

On a call with reporters Friday afternoon, T.J. Meyers, associate deputy administrator of APHIS Veterinary Services, said in more than 25,000 samples of wild bird surveillance collected since July, there have been “a few” detections of low pathogenic H7 strains of the virus, “but not all “H7N8s are the same”.

“There’s always the possibility of implications to human health when you see a new flu virus in animals, like we’re seeing now in turkeys”, Jhung told Reuters in an interview.

Almost 50 million birds were killed or destroyed after bird flu swept across the United States in 2015, infecting 211 commercial flocks in 15 U.S. states from California to Indiana.

“We may know more once the remaining work on virus sequencing is completed, likely sometime next week”, she said.

The H7N8 virus, which differs from the H5N2 strain that spread rapidly across the Midwest last spring and infected hundreds of turkey and egg-laying flocks, was identified in a commercial turkey flock in Dubois County, Ind., the U.S. Department of Agriculture said.

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

The H7N8 virus has not yet been found in wild birds, suggesting that the virus could have developed in wild birds that spent the winter in southern Indiana, USDA spokeswoman Andrea McNally said Friday. Epidemiologists are not certain why the virus would surface during the winter months, either, although officials say it can surface at any time.

“This finding of highly pathogenic H7N8 is unique to Indiana and the nation”, said Indiana State Veterinarian Bret D. Marsh in a news release. The strain is highly contagious for birds, not humans. An official agriculture census in 2012 noted that Dubois Country sheltered around 1.4 million turkeys and the top county in the state for poultry production.

Governor Mike Pence says he’s directed all relevant state agencies to use their resources to contain and resolve the issue. “Hoosiers can be assured that we are taking all precautions to contain the situation and minimize the effects to Indiana’s robust poultry industry”.