New Coronavirus News from 9 Sep 2022

Japan's total COVID cases top 20 mil. since start of pandemic [Kyodo News Plus, 9 Sep 2022]

Tokyo - Japan's cumulative total of coronavirus cases since the beginning of the pandemic topped 20 million on Friday, official data showed, doubling in less than two months as the country battles its seventh wave of infections.

Although cases appear to be on the decline, 99,491 new infections were confirmed Friday, according to local government reports, while an additional 211 deaths were also reported, surpassing 200 for the 26th consecutive day.

Japan confirmed the first domestic case of COVID-19 in January 2020.

Daily infections peaked at more than 260,000 during the seventh wave that has raged since around July, compared with over 100,000 during the sixth wave that began early this year.

The number of deaths due to the virus totaled more than 23,000 this year. In August, 7,328 people died, the worst single-month figure of the pandemic.

On Friday, the Tokyo metropolitan government reported 9,240 new infections, with Osaka Prefecture logging 7,285 and Aichi Prefecture 6,342.

Zoonotic Bird Flu News from 7 Sep 2022

Bird Flu Found in Dolphin in Florida and Porpoise in Sweden [The New York Times, 7 Sep 2022]

By Emily Anthes

The findings represent the first time a highly pathogenic form of the virus, which has devastated bird populations this year, has been detected in cetaceans.

The findings represent the first time a highly pathogenic form of the virus, which has devastated bird populations this year, has been detected in cetaceans.

A bottlenose dolphin found dead in a Florida canal this past spring tested positive for a highly virulent strain of bird flu, scientists said on Wednesday. The announcement came a week after Swedish officials reported that they had found the same type of avian influenza in a stranded porpoise.

This version of the virus, which has spread widely among North American and European birds, has affected an unusually broad array of species. But these findings represent the first two documented cases in cetaceans, a group of marine mammals that includes dolphins, porpoises and whales.

It is too soon to say how commonly the virus infects cetaceans, but its discovery in two different species on two different continents suggests that there have “almost certainly” been other cases, said Richard Webby, an influenza virologist at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis.

“Our surveillance activities on a global scale are never sensitive enough to pick up the only two events of this kind,” said Dr. Webby, who was not involved in the initial detection of the virus but is now working with the Florida team on follow-up studies.

The virus has become so widespread in birds that it would not be surprising to see the pathogen pop up in other unexpected species, he said. “Unfortunately, I think this is maybe just sort of a sign of what’s to come should this virus not disappear,” he added.

Experts emphasize that the risk to humans remains low. In the United States, the version of the virus that is circulating has caused just one documented human infection, in a person known to have had contact with poultry, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But the spread of the virus to new species poses potential risks to wildlife and provides the virus with new chances to mutate and adapt to mammalian hosts.

This strain of bird flu, known as Eurasian H5N1, has spread rapidly through domestic poultry, affecting tens of millions of farmed birds, according to the Agriculture Department. Compared to previous versions of the virus, this lineage has taken an especially heavy toll on wild bird populations, felling eagles, owls, pelicans and more.

That, in turn, has put mammals that encounter wild birds at risk. As the outbreaks expanded this spring, the virus turned up in foxes, bobcats, skunks and other species. The virus has also been blamed for a spike in seal strandings in Maine, where bird flu has been detected in both gray and harbor seals.

The Florida dolphin, a young male, was found in March in a canal in Dixie County, where area residents noticed that the animal had become trapped between the pilings of a pier and a sea wall, said Dr. Michael Walsh, a veterinarian at the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine who leads the university’s marine animal rescue program.

By the time rescuers arrived, the dolphin had died, he said. The team, which routinely conducts necropsies, collected a variety of samples from the dolphin and stored them until they could be analyzed in more detail.

At the time, the scientists had no reason to suspect that bird flu had made its way into dolphins, and they were not in a particular rush, said Dr. Walsh, who collaborated on the investigation with Dr. Robert Ossiboff, a veterinary pathologist, and Andrew Allison, a veterinary virologist, both at the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine.

When the results came back this summer, they revealed signs of inflammation in the dolphin’s brain and the surrounding tissues, Dr. Walsh said. Scientists have previously documented brain inflammation in fox kits infected with the virus, which can cause neurological symptoms in birds and mammals.

Subsequent laboratory testing turned up Eurasian H5N1 in the dolphin’s brain and lungs. “The brain tissue really showed a high level of virus,” Dr. Walsh said.

Whether the virus contributed to the dolphin’s death remains unknown, as does precisely how the animal contracted it. But it is not hard to imagine a young dolphin investigating an ailing bird near the shoreline, Dr. Walsh said, adding: “These animals are always curious about their environment and checking things out. So if he came upon a sick, either dying or dead, bird, he might be very curious about it. He might mouth it.”

The virus was also responsible for the death of a porpoise found stranded in Sweden in June, the Swedish National Veterinary Institute said last week. The pathogen was found in several of the animal’s organs, including the brain, according to the agency.

So far, there is no evidence that cetaceans are spreading the virus to one another, Dr. Webby said. And Dr. Webby’s team, which has isolated and sequenced the virus detected in the Florida dolphin, has not found any signs that it has picked up mutations associated with adaptation to mammals. “It still very much looks like a virus that you would pick up out of a bird,” he said.

But now that dolphins and porpoises are known to be susceptible, researchers can begin to look for the virus more proactively, including in any tissue samples they previously collected.

“Now, everybody’s going to be on guard for this,” Dr. Walsh said. “And that’ll help tell us how serious this really is for cetaceans on the coastlines.”

Bird flu: Number of highly pathogenic cases in wild birds confirmed [Agriland, 7 Sep 2022]

By Charles O'Donnell

There have been a number of highly pathogenic avian influenza (bird flu) cases confirmed in the country in recent weeks, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine has said.
The department said on social media that the H5N1 subtype of bird flu was discovered in a number of wild birds at various locations recently, particularly in coastal regions.

Although considered to be of very low risk to humans, the department said it is wise to avoid all contact with sick and dead wild birds.

The disease poses no risk to food safety, and well-cooked poultry and poultry products are safe to eat, the department said.

The department’s confirmation comes in the same week that a case of highly pathogenic bird flu was discovered at a premise in Wales.

The affected premise is located in Arthog, Gwynedd, northwest Wales, on the country’s coast.
Authorities there have set up a 3km protection and a 10km surveillance zone around the affected premises to limit the risk of the disease spreading.

Dr. Gavin Watkins, the deputy chief veterinary officer for Wales, said the new case is a “cause for concern and evidence of the continuing risk that is out there to birds”.

The main clinical signs of bird flu are a swollen head; blue discolouration of the head, comb and wattles; a loss of appetite; difficulty breathing; diarrhoea; fewer eggs laid or eggs with watery whites; and increased mortality.

Clinical signs can vary between species of birds. Chickens and turkeys can be severely affected with with high mortality rates while other species, such as duck and geese, may show minimal clinical signs.

Bird flu is a notifiable disease. If you have any concern that your flock has the disease, immediate action must be taken.

House or confine the birds away from other birds immediately and report the suspected case to the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.

Sewerby Hall: Bridlington bird flu protection zone forces zoo closure [BBC, 7 Sep 2022]

An East Yorkshire zoo has temporarily closed after a nearby case of bid flu led to a protection zone being imposed.

Sewerby Hall, near Bridlington, said it had decided to shut the zoo's doors after confirmation of the latest case of avian flu in the area.

It said the closure would "protect the birds" in the zoo's collection.

Government experts said the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 strain was found in poultry at a commercial farm on Tuesday.

The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) said it was the the second case in the area.

A 3km (1.7 mile) protection zone has been placed around the infected premises, near Bridlington, and all poultry at the farm site will be culled.

There is also a 10km (6.2 mile) surveillance zone around the area.
Restrictions within the zones include requiring bird owners to isolate flocks and restrict movements.

A spokesperson for Sewerby Hall said: "The closure is to protect the birds in the collection at the zoo.

"We apologise for any inconvenience or disappointment caused by this closure, but we know our visitors will understand the need for it."

They said the house and gardens remained open, but admission prices had been reduced.
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has said that bird flu mainly affects birds and the risk to human health is very low.

Mercury pollution makes ducks more likely to get bird flu: study [Phys.org, 7 Sep 2022]

Ducks contaminated by mercury pollution are significantly more likely to get bird flu, a study found Wednesday, pointing towards another way that human-driven changes to the natural world increase the risk of viruses spreading.

Bird flu rarely infects humans but persistent outbreaks in the US and UK among other countries have led to millions of poultry being culled so far this year.

Wild waterfowl such as ducks are believed to be superspreaders of the virus in part because they travel so far as they migrate, potentially infecting other birds along the way.

For the new study, scientists shot down nearly 750 wild ducks from 11 different species in California's San Francisco Bay, which is in a migratory path that stretches from Alaska to Patagonia.

They then tested the ducks for mercury contamination and whether they were infected with bird flu—or had antibodies for the virus in their system.

The results, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, showed that ducks contaminated with mercury were up to 3.5 times more likely to have had bird flu at some point over the last year or so.
The study's lead author, Claire Teitelbaum, a quantitative ecologist at the USGS Eastern Ecological Science Center, said mercury contamination "can suppress the immune system, and that might make infection with anything—including influenza—more likely".

The San Francisco Bay is also a "significant hotspot for mercury contamination in North America... largely from historical gold mining, where mercury was part of that process," she told AFP.

The ducks however tested negative to the highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu strain that has been detected in many parts of the world.

More bird flu likely
Teitelbaum said that bird flu outbreaks in the United States had slowed down during the summer "because many of the wild birds are up on their breeding grounds" farther north.

But "as they're starting to come back down, we're probably going to see a lot more activity", she warned.

The spread comes as researchers increasingly sound the alarm that climate change, deforestation, livestock farming and other human-induced factors raise the likelihood of viruses crossing over from animals to humans.

Teitelbaum said that "there are just so many ways in which humans have historically altered and are continuing to alter the natural environment."

How pollution and contamination affect the risk of diseases spreading is "just another link that we need to add in to our more holistic view of what's going on in the world," she said.

Daniel Becker, a biologist at the University of Oklahoma not involved in the research, hailed the "impressive" study.

"There is surprisingly little work looking at contaminant concentrations in wildlife and their relationship to infectious disease," especially for viruses that can cross over to humans like bird flu, he said.

Noah's Ark controversy persists following bird flu outbreak [The Henry County Times, Inc., 7 Sep 2022]

by Monroe Roark

As controversy continues to swirl around the Noah’s Ark animal sanctuary in Locust Grove, a recent outbreak of bird flu has resulted in numerous animal deaths and some people fear there could be more.

State officials came to the facility within the past two weeks and euthanized more than 100 birds and other animals. People who are protesting the current regime’s control of Noah’s Ark are alleging that this is only the latest example of how it is continuing to fail to do its duty regarding the safety and welfare of the animals on site.

A source close to the situation has pointed out that by not acting promptly to quarantine animals when the bird flu was first identified, many more animal deaths have resulted than were necessary.

Protestors have gathered multiple times in recent weeks in front of the Noah’s Ark entrance as well as the homes of facility president Dr. Shelly Lakly and at least one other board member.
Lakly is at the center of an ongoing controversy in which she and the current board are accused of taking control of Noah’s Ark from founder/director Jama Hedgecoth, who has led the organization for decades.

Amid a series of shakeups that included the removal from the board of its long-time volunteer veterinarian, allegations have arisen that some of the current staff is not properly trained or experienced enough to care for the animals, which puts their own safety at risk as well as that of the animals.

None of the current leadership is talking to the public. Board chairman Glenn Ross declined to speak at a recent hearing convened in Atlanta by Henry County’s legislative delegation.
According to reports, the board has retained legal counsel paid for by Noah’s Ark, while Hedgecoth is paying her own legal costs out of her own pocket.

As of September 5, Hedgecoth was still listed on the Noah’s Ark website as a board member. According to a statement on the home page, the facility is closed to the public until September 30 and is not accepting any community service during this entire month.

Cornwall attraction uses net to keep bird flu from penguins [BBC, 7 Sep 2022]

An animal park and visitor attraction in Cornwall is using a large net to protect its penguin enclosure and stop wild birds mixing with them.

Paradise Park, near Hayle, said it was taking the measures to stop the spread of avian flu on to the site, and gulls in particular landing in pools.

The move after comes after dead birds were found in the Hayle estuary, about 0.5 miles (800m) away, staff said.

The attraction houses about 1,200 birds across 130 species, they added.

Curator David Woollcott said the net was done by "a fantastic team of builders who came in and did that free of charge".

"The seagulls can't gain access to the penguins, on the pond, or on land, or anywhere else," he said.

Other precautions include visitors having to walk-through small footbaths which contain disinfectant.

A walk-through element in one bird enclosure and a small tropical house were also closed, and flamingos had been moved to a covered enclosure not accessible to the public, staff said.

All of Cornwall, plus the Isles of Scilly, all of Devon and parts of Somerset are under avian flu restrictions implemented by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

It follows confirmed outbreaks of bird flu in Cornwall and Devon last month.

One farmer says he might have to reclassify his eggs.

Ian Davey has 12,000 free range chickens on his farm near Trerulefoot, but he might not be able to sell his eggs as that if he has to change where his chickens roam.

He said: "Every day they have to go out because that is the legal requirement for free range hens.

"We could decide to keep them in and downgrade the eggs. We are thinking carefully about whether we do that."

Defra said the UK Health Security Agency advised "the risk to public health from the virus is very low".

The H5N1 strain of the avian influenza virus is highly contagious among birds, and spread by close contact with an infected bird, whether it is dead or alive.

Napa health officials say bird flu found in area, residents should be cautious [CBS San Francisco, 7 Sep 2022]

NAPA (CBS SF/BCN) – Napa County health officials announced Wednesday that a case of highly pathogenic avian influenza, also known as bird flu, was recently detected and they reminded the public to avoid direct contact with wild birds.

The viral disease occurs naturally in wild birds and can infect domestic poultry and other animal species as well as humans, according to a county news release.

County officials described the risk to humans as very low for now, but they added a caution though to the public to avoid direct contact with wild birds, especially those that are dead or appear ill. The announcement also included a long list of recommendations for keepers of commercial and domestic flocks of birds.

As of Tuesday, county officials said bird flu has been detected in commercial and domestic bird flocks in Sacramento, Butte, Contra Costa, Tuolumne and Fresno counties, as well as in wild birds in the following thirteen counties: Butte, Colusa, Glenn, Mendocino, Placer, Plumas, Sacramento, Santa Clara, Siskiyou, Solano, Sonoma, Stanislaus and Yolo County, in addition to Napa County.

Essex hit by bird flu outbreak at premises near Maldon [BBC, 7 Sep 2022]

A case of bird flu has been confirmed at a commercial premises in Essex.

The Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) said the highly pathogenic avian flu virus - H5N1 - was found on Tuesday at a site near Heybridge, Maldon.

A 1.9 mile (3km) protection zone and six mile (10km) surveillance zone has been placed around the premises.

All poultry on the site would be culled humanely, the agency said. It comes three days after an outbreak at a site near Holt in north Norfolk.

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Avian flu is spread by close contact with an infected bird, whether it is dead or alive.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs website said the virus was "primarily a disease of birds and the risk to the general public's health is very low".

In August, APHA had lifted an Avian Influenza Prevention Zone (AIPZ) that had been in place across Great Britain since 3 November.
An AIPZ was then declared in Cornwall, Devon, Isles of Scilly and part of Somerset on 31 August after a number of outbreaks in south-west England.
Last year, avian flu was confirmed elsewhere in Essex, at an animal sanctuary in Kirby Cross near Clacton.

New bird flu wave in France raises fears deadly virus here to stay [Reuters, 7 Sep 2022]

by Stephane Mahe, Sybille de La Hamaide and Emelia Sithole-Matarise

ROUZIC ISLAND, France, Sept 7 (Reuters) - The island of Rouzic's windswept clifftops should be teeming with gannets, but an unseasonal wave of bird flu on the French Atlantic coast this summer has devastated their numbers, alarming conservationists and poultry farmers.

Thousands of seabirds have perished along France's western shores in past weeks because of the viral infection, which usually strikes during autumn and winter months, raising fears it may have become a year-round risk and endemic to French wildlife.

That poses a danger for France's poultry industry, the European Union's second largest, which was forced to cull more than 19 million birds between November and May because of avian influenza, as bird flu is formally called.

"Bird flu is hitting seabirds in the spring and in the summer, which is totally new. Traditionally bird flu mainly hits waterfowls during winter," Pascal Provost, director of the Sept-Iles archipelago bird reserve which includes the Rouzic island.

After a brief lull in farm outbreaks in May, the French government eased poultry farming curbs in June.

However, soon after the virus hit flocks along the Brittany coast, slowly spreading south.

Rouzic is home to one of the world's rare colonies of northern gannets. Provosts said bird flu ravaged the flock from early July, killing adults and leaving their chicks to starve.

Since late July, seven new bird flu outbreaks have been confirmed on French farms, according to the agriculture ministry.

"The situation is exceptional - never encountered in France before - due to its scale and the period when cases are being detected," the ministry said on its website, warning about the risk of contamination to poultry farms.

French poultry farmers are still recovering from previous outbreaks and the mass culling that followed, and before the latest outbreaks already faced a near 10% fall in output this year, industry group Anvol said.

"Before, bird flu outbreaks were caused by migrating birds, but now we see that there are more and more cases in French wildlife. This is new and it worries farmers and the whole poultry industry", Anvol chairman Jean-Michel Schaeffer told Reuters.

Bird flu is usually transmitted by infected migrating wild birds' faeces or direct contact with contaminated feed, clothing and equipment.

A first: Avian influenza detected in American dolphin [UF Health News, 7 Sep 2022]

By Sarah Carey

lorida’s Dixie County was infected with the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus, or HPAIV, making it the first cetacean to be found with the virus in America and only the second known case in the world.

The young male dolphin was recovered in March at Horseshoe Beach by the University of Florida’s marine animal rescue team. A collaboration between UF College of Veterinary Medicine researchers and state and federal laboratories identified the unexpected infection with HPAIV, commonly known as bird flu. The virus recovered from the dolphin belonged to clade 2.3.4.4b of the Eurasian H5 viral lineage.

Wild birds have spread H5 clade 2.3.4.4b HPAIV widely in North America and Europe this year. The virus primarily affects wild birds and domesticated poultry but only rarely infects people. Researchers suspect the dolphin likely got infected by interacting with a wild bird killed by HPAIV.

“While obviously the presence of HPAIV is a concern, the key takeaway for us is that additional caution should be taken by those handling or encountering wild dolphins during rescue events or while performing necropsies,” said Mike Walsh, D.V.M., a clinical associate professor with UF’s College of Veterinary Medicine who leads the animal rescue team and performed the dolphin’s necropsy with others.

There has been only one report of H5 clade 2.3.4.4b in people in 2022.

Richard Webby, Ph.D., directs the World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Studies on the Ecology of Influenza in Animals and Birds at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The WHO Center at St. Jude, which analyzes animal flu viruses and their potential risk to human health, will analyze the dolphin tissue samples supplied by the UF team.

“The virus has some features that make further study and follow-up on mammalian cases important, but the virus does not currently contain the features we know are required for transmission between humans and likely other mammalian hosts,” Webby said. “In addition, the recent discovery of HPAIV in a porpoise in Sweden almost certainly suggests that the Florida dolphin finding isn’t a one-off, unique event.”

The UF team did not immediately suspect anything out of the ordinary when they performed a routine necropsy. Tests for common causes of deaths in dolphins turned up negative.

“However, this dolphin had inflammation of the brain and also the tissues surrounding the brain, known as the meninges,” said Robert Ossiboff, D.V.M., Ph.D., an associate professor of veterinary anatomical pathology at UF. “This finding was unusual.”

Andrew Allison, Ph.D., an assistant professor of veterinary virology at UF, studies viruses that normally circulate in wildlife populations, primarily wild birds and mammals. He knew that HPAIV was a rapidly growing concern for wild bird populations in Florida.

“Although avian flu infection had never been documented in a dolphin, the high incidence of the virus in wild birds within the state in the spring — specifically aquatic bird species such as ducks, gulls, terns and herons — suggested that encounters between dolphins and dying or dead birds near the shoreline was not out of the realm of possibility,” he said.

Wild birds that succumb to HPAIV often have neurologic signs with virus found in their brains. Since the dolphin had inflammation of the brain and meninges that could have been caused by a virus, Allison believed that the dolphin could have died from HPAIV infection.

On the basis of these initial suspicions, the UF researchers sent brain and lung samples of the dolphin to the state’s Bronson Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory in Kissimmee, a nationally accredited facility and a member of the National Animal Health Laboratory network, or NAHLN.
This lab is approved for and routinely performs testing for animal pathogens of significant consequence that can pose severe threats to animals and humans. There, suspicions were confirmed, as the samples tested positive for avian flu. As a NAHLN laboratory, avian flu detections are sent on to the National Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory in Ames, Iowa, for characterization by genetic sequencing to identify the specific strain of avian flu.

UF’s marine animal rescue team is a member of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Southeast Regional Stranding Network, which authorizes members to assist and investigate stranded marine mammals. The UF rescue team works closely with the stranding network, especially when investigating pathogens with unknown effects in cetaceans.

Bird flu hits turkey supply ahead of Thanksgiving [Supply Chain Dive, 7 Sep 2022]

By Sarah Zimmerman

A resurgence of the bird flu is hurting U.S. turkey supply and likely to raise prices ahead of Thanksgiving.

Commercial turkey producers have reported an increasing number of avian influenza outbreaks since mid-July after nearly two months with no cases, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Ten outbreaks have been reported since July 14, affecting approximately 617,200 birds.

Outbreaks are unusual at this time of year, as experts believe avian flu does not generally survive hot weather. Cases have been reported in California as recently as Sept. 1, even as the state grapples with a stifling heat wave.

Avian flu does not normally infect humans, but it is deadly to birds and often requires farmers to kill off entire flocks to contain the spread. Approximately 5.4 million turkeys have been killed due to exposure from January to July according to the USDA, equivalent to 2.5% of the turkeys slaughtered for consumption in all of 2021.

The first case of bird flu was identified in January of this year, and the disease has now spread to 39 states. The most recent outbreaks in commercial operations come at an unfortunate time for producers — farmers begin raising turkeys destined for the Thanksgiving table in July.

Hormel Foods, one of the largest turkey processors in the country, expects supply to remain constrained through first quarter of fiscal year 2023 after recently identifying positive cases within its flock. The company expects volumes in the fourth quarter, which includes Thanksgiving, to be off by 30%, CFO Jacinth Smiley said on a Sept. 1 earnings call.

“Lower industry-wide turkey supplies are expected to keep prices higher near term,” Smiley said.

The last major outbreak of bird flu, in 2015, ended due to a combination of warm weather and an increase in control measures, according to a USDA report. But heat hasn’t seemed to slow the spread of the flu this year.

“Historically, warm weather or heat has really tapped [avian flu] down,” said Hormel President and CEO Jim Snee. “But you’re starting to see cases in California where temperatures are higher.”

Around 50 million birds were affected in the 2015 outbreak, which the USDA called “the worst documented animal health incident in the United States.” This year’s outbreak is already close to those numbers, with 40.8 million birds affected since the beginning of 2022.

Bird flu is back in Wisconsin. Some poultry producers worry the highly contagious disease is here to stay. [Wisconsin Public Radio, 7 Sep 2022]

By Hope Kirwan

Despite having no new cases in domestic flocks, state officials say the disease was detected in wild birds throughout the summer

After a three-month lull, highly contagious avian influenza is back in Wisconsin.

The state Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection confirmed the disease in a non-commercial flock in Washington County last week. It’s the first case in Wisconsin since the end of May. DATCP also reported that Minnesota and Indiana confirmed new cases last week after a summer without activity.

Last spring, eight commercial flocks and 14 backyard or small farm flocks were culled across Wisconsin because of the disease. It’s the first time the state’s poultry owners have dealt with the highly pathogenic avian influenza since 2015.

Animal health experts had previously forecast that the virus would die down in hot summer weather before resurging this fall. But state veterinarian Dr. Darlene Konkle said monitoring for the disease in wild birds showed that avian influenza never fully left Wisconsin or other Midwest states.

"Even from late spring, early summer, there were still some detections and wild birds here and there," she said.

She said the fall migration season has begun for some bird species, which could be why the state has seen another case in a domestic flock.

DATCP is suggesting flock owners once again take added precautions to clean shoes and equipment, prevent contact with wild birds and limit visitors to their flocks or farms.

Nick Levendoski, owner of Sunnyside Hatchery in Beaver Dam, said this year’s battle with avian influenza feels different from the 2015 outbreak. He said the previous outbreak was a different strain of the virus that did not have the same impact on wild birds.

"Back in 2015, the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus was never seated in the environment like we're seeing right now," said Levendoski, who is also president of the Wisconsin Poultry and Egg Industries Association. "Producers and their veterinarians and staff are just preparing for this to be more of a long term challenge because it is so prevalent in the wild as well."

He said producers in Europe have continued to see a similar virus strain pop up again and again. And he thinks that could be the case in the U.S. as well, with the disease impacting domestic flocks every spring and fall during migration season.

Konkle said it’s difficult to predict how long the virus will stick around, but she agrees that poultry producers need to be ready for the disease be present through 2023.

"I think we all need to be prepared for a little more long term situation with dealing with this virus, certainly through the winter months and into next spring," she said.

Levendoski said most poultry producers have insurance that will help purchase new birds if a flock has to be culled. But he said all producers have to deal with the extra time it takes to ensure they’re following safety protocols, testing for the disease and applying for permits needed to sell and move birds between states.

"Their farm may have been clear of the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus. But if they had a neighbor within, you know, a 10-kilometer radius that was positive, there's just an awful lot of permitting, a lot more inspections. You know, those kinds of costs definitely add up," he said.

Levendoski said he did see apprehension among his customers last spring, mostly backyard flock owners and producers who raise poultry for local markets. But he said sales picked back up in early summer when the state lifted avian influenza precautions. Even with the threat of the disease’s return, he said the overall demand for new birds hasn’t been affected too much.

"The one thing that kind of helped to solidify their decisions is otherwise expensive meat and eggs at the grocery store. You know, a lot of folks felt it was still worth the risk, taking a chance to be self-sufficient or to provide for farmers markets and stuff," Levendoski said.

He said those grocery store costs could go up further this winter if virus transmission worsens and the supply of turkeys from large commercial operators is limited heading into the holiday season.