Zoonotic Bird Flu News from 4 Nov till 29 Nov 2022

'Largest avian flu outbreak in U.S. history' has killed more than 52 million birds, 4.7 million in Colorado - Local News 8 [LocalNews8.com, 29 Nov 2022]

By Olivia Young

COLORADO (KCNC) — Colorado State University’s Veterinary Diagnostic Lab does all of the state’s testing for avian flu, including identifying the first-ever outbreak among domestic birds in Colorado. The unprecedented outbreak, which has been felt across the nation, is once again spiking.

“We really don’t know what’s next in this outbreak,” said Maggie Baldwin, state veterinarian with Colorado’s Department of Agriculture. She says the fall surge in cases, follows one in the spring of 2022, based on bird migration.

“This virus is carried by wild birds, primarily waterfowl and shorebird species. So when we see increased migration, we expect that we’re going to see more virus,” said Baldwin.

The virus has a near 100% mortality rate in poultry, so entire flocks must be euthanized if flu is detected in one member.

“Across the United States we have lost more than 52 million birds,” said Baldwin. It’s the largest avian flu outbreak in U.S. history. In Colorado, 4.7 million domestic poultry birds have died in the outbreak this year.

“That represents more than 85% of our total table egg-laying population in the state,” said Baldwin.

The impact of that population loss is being felt by Colorado’s consumers at the checkout.
“20-some percent increase in prices in table eggs, also broiler chickens, and turkeys,” said Baldwin.

From price hikes to egg shortages, don’t expect the strain on your wallet to stop spreading, until the avian flu does.

“This one we’re expecting we’re going to have a prolonged outbreak,” said Baldwin.

Everyone can take steps to reduce the spread of avian flu. If you’re a bird owner, make sure to reduce contact between your bird and wild ones. And even if you’re not, make sure to clean your shoes after walking in a park or anywhere you might encounter wild birds.

Wildlife experts concerned botulism or avian influenza could be behind duck deaths in Dania Beach [CBS Miami, 29 Nov 2022]

BY TED SCOUTEN
DANIA BEACH – Domenico Capurso wants to know what's killing the Muscovy ducks at his Dania Beach condo complex.

"It's a very cruel death whether it was foul play or not," he said.

There's been at least half a dozen found dead in the past week.

"I've been here 15 years and I never seen, once in a blue moon a duck dies, but never like this, six or seven, never," he said.

Another duck at the complex is showing signs of sickness too.

Capurso initially thought there was foul play, but wildlife experts say it could be something else.

"That could be either botulism, which is a toxin from a bacterium in the soil," said Dr. Charlotte Cournoyer from the South Florida Wildlife Center. "The other thing we're really concerned about right now is highly-pathogenic avian influenza."

She is especially worried about avian influenza.

"We've seen at least 50 Muscovy ducks come in with these symptoms in the last month. And a lot of times people bring us the sick duck, but there were more dead ducks back at the pond."
State wildlife officials are monitoring avian flu cases. It's shown up all over the state, including here in Broward and Miami-Dade.

Humans are feeling the impact too. While there are rare cases of spread to people, this is also a pocketbook issue at the grocery store.

"In 2022 alone, 50 million birds in the poultry industry have been affected by this virus. It is 90-100% fatal so it has huge economic impacts as well as a threat to our native wildlife," she said.

Wildlife officials say if you come in contact with a sick or dead bird, do not touch it. Contact FWC here.

Bird flu: Warning issued amid Moray pink-footed geese deaths [Yahoo News Australia, 29 Nov 2022]

People are being asked to avoid Findhorn Bay in Moray following the deaths of more than 20 pink-footed geese and an "unusual" number of gulls.

NatureScot is awaiting test results to see if the deaths are due to bird flu.

The Scottish nature agency is asking walkers and goose shooters to stay away from the area as a result.

NaturesScot's Alastair MacGugan said it was "crucial" to reduce the chances of the disease spreading further and faster in Scotland.
• 100,000 birds culled after farm avian flu cases
• No plans to widen bird flu rules in Scotland
• New anti-bird flu rules as virus hits flocks
• More stories from North East Scotland, Orkney and Shetland

"We are very concerned about the impact of avian flu on our wild bird populations, particularly with these latest suspected cases in Moray," the wildlife management manager said.

"We don't think a blanket ban on shooting geese across the Moray coast is warranted. But given what seem to be increasing cases of avian flu in the area, we would ask shooters to exercise restraint at this point until we find out more.

"We are also grateful to members of the public for their assistance in avoiding the area to help prevent the spread."

Moray Council echoed the call for the public to exercise caution.

The risk to human health from the virus is described as very low.

In July, NatureScot announced it was setting up a taskforce to respond to bird flu.

S. Korea to conduct bird flu tests on all poultry due to fast disease spread [Yonhap News Agency, 29 Nov 2022]

SEOUL, Nov. 29 (Yonhap) -- The agriculture ministry said Tuesday it will carry out intense inspection of all poultry farms across the country next month and beef up quarantine steps due to the fast spread of the highly pathogenic avian influenza.

The country has confirmed a total of 25 bird flu cases at farms so far this year, most of which have occurred since mid-October.

The latest cases were reported at two farms in the southwestern city of Naju earlier in the day.

The number of bird flu cases among wild birds stood at 54, nearly quadrupled from 15 case logged during the same period a year earlier, according to the ministry.

To stem the spread of the disease, the government decided to conduct tests on all poultry raised at local farms next month, and inspect farms to see if they fully carry out due disinfection work, the ministry said.

Those who violate related rules will face a fine, it added.

South Korea is running a four-week special quarantine period through Dec. 23, which calls for disinfection work at all farms and related facilities twice a day.

CHARLEBOIS: We all must do our part to stop Avian flu spread [Toronto Sun, 29 Nov 2022]

Dr. Sylvain Charlebois

The risk of seeing this epizootic virus turn into a zoonosis, a human epidemic, is still real.

Avian flu certainly deserves more media attention. The avian flu that is currently impacting our poultry sector has become a real problem.

Unlike previous strains, the current bird flu has spread across Canada, raising fears that it could become endemic in wild birds, no less. A nightmare.

According to the latest news, more than 60 farms are under investigation in Canada. This year alone, the avian flu has infected approximately 200 farms with more than 3.6 million birds across Canada. That’s a lot of inventory that never reached the consumer market.

Of course, retail prices have been heavily impacted by the flu for months. In the United States, for example, eggs are up by more than 40% since last year, a record. In Canada, where supply management and our quota system typically stabilize the balance between supply and demand, the scenario is not much better. Eggs in Canada have increased by about 20% in some regions, the largest annual increase in 50 years.

For meat, it’s the same thing; for chicken, and of course, our holiday turkey, the increase may startle some. Chicken is up 17% on average in Canada. For turkey, the increase exceeds 20% in certain regions, especially where avian flu affects many farms.

It’s a safe bet that your eggs, your chicken, and even your holiday turkey will be more expensive in a few weeks. Moreover, if you plan to host a dinner with a turkey, it’s better to buy it now. Prices will surely increase in the coming weeks.

The avian flu has also reached other continents, such as Europe and Asia. The current strain is highly pathogenic and can spread at an unmanageable rate. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency recently said it believes migratory birds are responsible for the spread of disease in Canada. If the flu is transmitted through wild birds, almost no poultry operation will be immune and risk management will be virtually impossible. And more city dwellers have backyard chickens now, which can only increase risks.

But unlike 20 years ago, the coordination between the federal agency, provinces and the producers themselves is much better. Stakeholders learned from their past mistakes and got informed about this flu, otherwise, the current outbreak would have been worse. The 2004 carnage in British Columbia’s Fraser Valley is a good example. A total of 42 commercial farms and 11 poultry houses were affected 18 years ago, prompting federal authorities to order the mass culling of around 17 million birds. It was a disaster.

This year, despite a more virulent strain, 275,700 birds have been infected with avian flu in the province so far. Not so bad, but still, that’s almost $20 million worth of chickens, irradiated because of the flu.

But bird flu has been threatening the industry for months, and the pressure for some growers has become unbearable. There is no other remedy, no vaccine for birds. Researchers are now mobilizing to possibly develop a vaccine for birds. The risk of seeing this epizootic virus turn into a zoonosis, a human epidemic, is still real.

No human cases of avian influenza have been detected in Canada to date. There have been some elsewhere, but not in Canada. Let’s hope that doesn’t change. It should also be noted that avian flu poses no food safety risk to consumers, either.

To help, we can do our part. In 2019, before there were border restrictions for poultry and eggs, about a quarter (24%) of Canadians took a day trip by car to the United States, according to our data at the Lab. Among this group, one in ten (11%) report bringing eggs or raw poultry to Canada. Huge. Even though it is now illegal to bring poultry and eggs from the United States, don’t be tempted to do this. There are some that will, but to do so is ill-advised.

These products represent a risk for our producers.

Better buy your turkey and eggs here, with peace of mind.

Bird flu has killed thousands of Florida’s wild birds this year. Is it here to stay? [Tampa Bay Times, 29 Nov 2022]

By Max Chesnes

It’s been an “unprecedented” year with the virus, and species like eagles, pelicans and vultures are all vulnerable.

It was the morning of Jan. 22 when the fears of Florida wildlife biologists became reality.

Reports of a highly infectious new bird flu strain had been confirmed a month prior in Canada, the launching pad for several migratory bird species that make their way to Florida. Biologists had been watching with anxious anticipation as birds wandered closer.

Then, it arrived.

The dreaded day unfolded when hunters in Palm Beach County turned over two ducks, just shot and killed, for routine disease testing at a checkpoint hosted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The pair of blue-winged teal ducks, with a white stripe down their faces and powder-blue wing feathers, were the first two animals in the state to test positive for the untreatable Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza.

“That was page one,” said Mark Cunningham, a fish and wildlife health subsection leader for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

“We’re on page 500 now.”

That day kicked off a busy year for Cunningham and his small team of veterinarians and wildlife technicians as they tried to track the unprecedented arrival of the virus. Fast forward 11 months, and thousands of wild birds are estimated dead, including beloved species like bald eagles and great horned owls.

“It’s certainly been a busy year. There really is no comparison,” Cunningham said in an interview with the Tampa Bay Times. “This is the first time we’ve had a highly pathogenic avian flu in Florida’s wild birds. And it’s really blown up.”

More than half of all Florida counties have confirmed or suspected cases of the extremely infectious bird flu strain this year. The epicenter of the outbreak initially emerged in Brevard County and along Florida’s Atlantic Coast in early February, as hundreds of lesser scaup ducks, a common North American diving duck with a black head, began showing signs of neurological distress. It has since spread as far north as Okaloosa and as far south as Miami-Dade.

On paper, the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows roughly 1,450 cases in Florida through November. But the true total is suspected to be much higher than that, Cunningham said.

Many cases are presumed positive, but haven’t undergone formal testing. Take, for instance, the state’s black vulture population: A sharp spike in bird flu cases was recently reported in vultures because an infected animal will often return to its roost before it dies. Then its fellow vultures will feed on the virus-laden carcass, spreading the disease further.

That cycle can’t be fully documented with testing, but the cases are out there. As Cunningham spells it out: If biologists see 50 dead birds and test three of them, and all three are confirmed to have the virus, the other 47 are suspected positive.

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“We estimate that it’s well into the thousands of birds that have died,” Cunningham said. And there’s “well over 2,000 confirmed cases” of vultures alone.

The state wildlife commission says there is a “low risk” of humans contracting the virus, and no human cases have been confirmed in Florida this year. In April, a human case was confirmed in Colorado after somebody became infected when handling poultry that was presumed to be carrying the virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The person reported symptoms of fatigue for several days before recovering.

Still, wildlife officials “caution that you avoid contact with these birds and contact your public health department with any concerns of a potential infection or exposure,” the agency writes on a webpage dedicated to the outbreak.

In the Tampa Bay area, at least six bird species have died from avian influenza, according to the latest U.S. Department of Agriculture data. That includes a trio of great horned owls that were all confirmed dead on the same day, June 29, and a bald eagle, black vultures and mallard ducks in Hillsborough County.

Infected birds can, in some cases, be asymptomatic. That was what happened with the first two ducks that tested positive in January. They didn’t appear sick on the outside, Cunningham said. But some species can show visible symptoms, like lethargy, tremors, circling and seizures, according to the Florida wildlife agency. Sometimes birds are found dead with no signs of injury.

Unlike other states, Florida has, for now, avoided cases spreading to commercial poultry flocks, according to Madeline Brezin, the deputy digital director for the Florida Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services. It’s a different story in other states: At least 1.8 million egg-laying hens will be killed in Nebraska and a 6-mile “control zone” was created after bird flu was confirmed there over the weekend, the Nebraska Department of Agriculture announced Saturday.

“It is critically important that this does not occur in Florida,” the state’s wildlife agency warns on its website.

But backyard poultry flocks here haven’t been as lucky.

At least 21 backyard flocks across 11 Florida counties were confirmed with bird flu since August, according to state agriculture data provided by Brezin. That includes two flocks in Hillsborough County, confirmed between Oct. 28 and Nov. 16, and one in Pasco on Oct. 26.

The infected birds were mostly chickens, but there were also domestic ducks, geese, peafowl and guineas.

An unprecedented bird flu outbreak is also affecting mammals. In September, the University of Florida announced a bottlenose dolphin in Dixie County was confirmed to have contracted the virus. [ Courtesy of the U.S. Department of Agriculture ]

Wild populations of aquatic birds like pelicans and gulls have also succumbed to the virus in Florida, federal agriculture data show. The University of Florida announced in September that a bottlenose dolphin in Dixie County contracted bird flu in the first known case in North America. It likely came into contact with an infected bird along Florida’s Gulf Coast, according to researchers.

Now that migratory waterfowl are returning to Florida, Cunningham predicts a surge of cases in duck and vulture populations in the Panhandle area this winter, he told the Times. Last year, the virus came from eastern Canada along the Atlantic Coast. This year, it’s likely to come from what’s called the Mississippi Flyway, a bird migration path that stretches from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico.

There was a spike in Florida in September and October, and one theory is that Hurricane Ian stressed out birds and increased bird flu’s spread, according to Cunningham. Despite the unprecedented year and the busy workload, the team tasked with tracking the virus says there have been plenty of lessons learned as new science emerges. One is that the virus affects species differently; another is that the virus was supposed to fade away in warmer temperatures, but has persisted in the Florida heat.

“We’ve learned a lot. It’s definitely a concerning disease,” Cunningham said. “Now that it’s been circulating in the population for about a year, hopefully soon it’ll start to taper off. That’s the question of the day.”

Bird flu: What is it and what's behind the outbreak? [BBC, 28 Nov 2022]

By Helen Briggs & Jeremy Howell

The world is going through its worst-ever outbreak of bird flu.

The highly infectious H5N1 strain of the disease is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of wild birds and millions of domestic ones.

What is bird flu and how deadly is it?
Bird flu is an infectious disease of poultry and wild birds that has been around for a century. It usually flares up in autumn before fading away.

"It originated amongst ducks in Europe and Asia, and spread to other birds," says Paul Digard, a professor of virology in the Roslin Institute at Edinburgh University.

The H5N1 virus, which is the most prevalent strain now, was first reported in China in 1996 and has broken out sporadically ever since.

However, this year the virus has persisted for much longer than usual.

The H5N1 strain is deadly and can spread through entire flocks of domestic birds within a matter of days, through birds' droppings and saliva, or through contaminated feed and water.
The current wave of bird flu is the worst one ever in Europe, and in the US.

"160 million domestic birds worldwide have been killed by this virus, or have had to be culled by farmers to contain it," says Professor Munir Iqbal of the UK's Pirbright Institute, which specialises in animal welfare.

"This includes 100 million domestic birds in the US and Europe."

In western European countries, such as the UK, it has led to egg shortages in the shops and fears of a turkey shortage at Christmas.

Bird flu has decimated pelican colonies in Greece
What's so unusual about this outbreak?
More wild birds than ever before have been killed by bird flu this year - with sea birds being especially hard hit.

The current virus has affected 80 different bird species," says Professor Iqbal. "For example, it has killed 40% of the skua population in Scotland, and 2,000 Dalmatian pelicans in Greece."

This "huge outbreak" has also spread into species such as seals and foxes, says veterinary expert Dr Louise Moncla of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, US.

"These outbreaks began in Europe, then spread to North America, and unlike past outbreaks, have not died out," she says.

We are in the middle of an "unprecedented wildlife disease outbreak, the breadth and scope of which is staggering", says Dr Rebecca Poulson of the University of Georgia, US.

Scientists are unsure why this outbreak is so much worse than others. It may be that the virus has mutated to enable it to spread more readily from bird to bird, or to hang around longer in the environment.

The recent spike in bird flu has been particularly harmful to protected seabird species like the gannet

Dr Nancy Beerens, bird flu expert at Wageningen Bioveterinary Research in the Netherlands, which analyses suspected bird flu samples, says the virus may now be ubiquitous in wild birds.
"As the virus now has infected many wild bird species, it becomes unlikely that it will disappear again from the bird population," she says.

What's being done to tackle the outbreak?
China has been vaccinating its domestic poultry flocks.

However, other countries avoid this because it is hard to judge which birds have been made immune by the vaccine and which ones have not - and so the meat and eggs from vaccinated flocks cannot be sold abroad.

"There are strict export controls when a country decides to vaccinate," says Dr Maurice Pitesky of the School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California, Davis.

Governments in EU countries and North America have instead generally told their farmers to cull all the poultry in any flock in which bird flu has broken out.

Farmers in the UK and France have also been told to bring free range poultry flocks indoors, to stop them being infected by wild birds.

France and other EU countries are trialling bird flu vaccines
Despite the commercial drawbacks of vaccinating poultry, governments in France and the Netherlands have begun trials of vaccines to try and bring the bird flu epidemic under control.

Is bird flu a risk to humans?

In some instances, humans have caught bird flu when they have come into close contact with infected birds.

"The current strain of H5N1 currently seems to be low risk for this," says Prof Digard.

However, he says: "We need proper surveillance of how far it is spreading, by monitoring wild birds and getting reports from vets dealing with domestic animals."

Avian flu kills 50 million birds in record US outbreak [BBC, 28 Nov 2022]

Over 50 million birds have died amid a record-breaking outbreak of avian flu in the United States, according to the Department of Agriculture (USDA).

This year's total of 50.54m birds - including chickens and turkeys - has surpassed a previous high set in 2015.

Flocks in over 40 states have been affected, more than double the number of states in the previous outbreak.

While the risk for humans is low, authorities have warned that safety measures should be taken near birds.

The disease is spread by wild birds which transmit the virus through feathers, faeces and direct contact.

"Wild birds continue to spread HPAI [highly pathogenic avian influenza] throughout the country as they migrate, so preventing contact between domestic flocks and wild birds is critical to protecting US poultry," Rosemary Sifford, the USDA's chief veterinary officer, was quoted as saying by Reuters.

In a 3 November announcement about the ongoing outbreak, the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said that while the risk to the general public remains low, it is advising Americans to take "preventative measures" - such as avoiding direct contact with wild birds and avoiding unprotected contact with poultry - to prevent spreading the disease to humans, pets, birds and other animals.

"This applies not just to workplace or wildlife settings, but potentially to household settings where people have backyard flocks or pet birds with potential exposures to wild or domestic infected birds," the statement added.

While cases of human infections are rare, the CDC's website warns that the virus could spread when airborne - such as via droplets or dust - if it gets into a person's eyes, nose or mouth, or is inhaled.

Symptoms of bird flu in humans have previously ranged from eye redness and mild flu-like symptoms, to pneumonia and difficulty breathing. World Health Organization (WHO) data shows that only 868 cases of transmission from birds to humans were recorded between 2003 and 3 November 2022, resulting in 456 deaths.

In the US, only one case - a Colorado resident who was directly exposed to poultry - has been reported in the recent outbreak. The person reported fatigue for a few days and recovered, the CDC said in April.

Poultry deaths stemming from avian flu led to rising prices for eggs and turkey ahead of last week's Thanksgiving holiday in the US. The American Farm Bureau, a US-based insurance company and lobbying group, said the price of a traditional Thanksgiving turkey had risen 21% over the last year and now stands at nearly $29 (£24.05) for a 16 pound (7.5kg) bird.

Record outbreaks of avian flu have also swept across the UK and Europe, as well as parts of Africa and Asia.

The World Organisation for Animal Health believes the wave of outbreaks is the result of international trade, farming practices and migratory wild birds. Over 4.6 million birds died or were culled between mid-October and mid-November alone, according to the organisation.
On 31 October, concerns over the outbreak prompted officials in England to order that all poultry and captive birds must be kept indoors from 7 November.

A similar measure went into effect on Monday in Northern Ireland, and is scheduled to be implemented in Wales on 2 December.

Deadly Bird Flu Outbreak Is The Worst In U.S. History [HuffPost, 26 Nov 2022]

By Hilary Hanson

A highly contagious strain of avian influenza has killed more birds in the country than any past flare-up.

An ongoing outbreak of a deadly strain of bird flu has now killed more birds than any past flare-up in U.S. history.

The virus, known as highly pathogenic avian influenza, has led to the deaths of 50.54 million domestic birds in the country this year, according to Agriculture Department data reported by Reuters on Thursday. That figure represents birds like chickens, ducks and turkeys from commercial poultry farms, backyard flocks and facilities such as petting zoos.

The count surpasses the previous record of 50.5 million dead birds from a 2015 outbreak, according to Reuters.

Separately, USDA data shows at least 3,700 confirmed cases among wild birds.

On farms, some birds die from the flu directly, while in other cases, farmers kill their entire flocks to prevent the virus from spreading after one bird tests positive. Such farmers have occasionally drawn condemnation from animal welfare advocates for using a culling method known as “ventilation shutdown plus,” which involves sealing off the airways to a barn and pumping in heat to kill the animals.

The virus has raged through Europe and North America since 2021. A variety of wild birds have been affected worldwide, including bald eagles, vultures and seabirds. This month, Peru reported its first apparent outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza after 200 dead pelicans were found on a beach.

The migration of infected wild birds has been a major cause of the spread. Health and wildlife officials urge anyone who keeps domestic birds to prevent contact with their wild counterparts.

While health experts do not generally consider highly pathogenic avian influenza to be a major risk to mammals, a black bear cub in Alaska was euthanized earlier this month after contracting the virus. Wildlife veterinarian Dr. Kimberlee Beckmen told the Juneau Empire newspaper that the young cub had a weak immune system.

Over the summer, avian flu also spread among seals in Maine, which the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration believed contributed to an unusually high number of seal deaths.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that the risk “to the general public” from the bird flu outbreak is low. However, the agency recommends precautions like wearing personal protective equipment and thoroughly washing hands for people who have prolonged contact with birds that may be infected.

In April, a Colorado prisoner working at a commercial farm became the first person in the U.S. to test positive for the new strain, though he was largely asymptomatic.

US Avian Flu Outbreak Worst on Record With 50 Million Dead Birds [Bloomberg, 25 Nov 2022]

By Michael Hirtzer

• Avian influenza contributed to 50.54 million birds killed
• Highly pathogenic virus prompted turkey, egg prices to soar

The American outbreak of avian influenza is officially the worst on record with 50.54 million dead birds, according to the US Department of Agriculture.

The highly pathogenic virus was found at a commercial turkey farm in South Dakota this week, resulting in tens of thousands of birds being killed to avoid further spread. That pushed the 2022 total depopulation figures above 2015 when 50.5 million birds were killed, USDA data shows.

Thousands of wild birds dead across Oregon: bird-flu outbreak blamed [OregonLive, 24 Nov 2022]

By Gosia Wozniacka

An outbreak of highly pathogenic avian flu in both wild birds and backyard flocks has killed thousands of birds throughout the state, Oregon wildlife and agriculture officials say.

The disease, typically known as bird flu, has been detected in almost every county in Oregon. Its current strain is especially deadly for wild birds, which are dying in larger numbers than during previous outbreaks.

The number of backyard flocks – which include chickens, ducks and other domesticated birds – that have been impacted also has been much larger than in recent outbreaks. While turkeys are especially susceptible to the disease, only a handful have died locally since Oregon isn’t a turkey producing state, officials said.

Sick birds act like they are drunk. They’re uncoordinated and lethargic; they shake, swim in circles and fly into the sides of houses. Those that show symptoms usually die within 72 hours.
“It’s definitely serious,” said Ryan Scholz, state veterinarian with the Oregon Department of Agriculture.

Bird-flu viruses occur naturally in the environment, and avian influenza doesn’t always cause mortality or even illness in birds. Some birds, like mallard ducks, have developed immunity to the disease, even its highly pathogenic strains. They suffer no symptoms, but they spread the disease, most commonly through feces.

The virus typically arrives to the U.S. from Europe or Eurasia, carried by the waterfowl that fly thousands of miles. The birds spread the disease each time they touch down to rest.

Deadlier strains of bird flu have been on the rise in recent years. Highly pathogenic avian influenza has devastated wild birds and the poultry industry across the globe. The virus is now endemic in Europe and Asia.

This year may prove even deadlier than usual. The virus typically peters out with dry and hot weather, as low pathogenic strains of the disease naturally outcompete it. That happened in 2014-15, the last major outbreak in the U.S. in domestic birds.

But birds did not stop getting sick this summer in the Pacific Northwest. They continued to die during the hottest months and well into the fall – an anomaly to how the virus usually operates.
In recent weeks, wild birds have been getting sick and dying from the Fernhill Wetlands in Forest Grove to the Tualatin River Wildlife Refuge to the Willamette Valley Wildlife Refuges. It’s impossible to know exactly how many wild birds have been impacted, said Colin Gillin, State Wildlife Veterinarian.

“If I said it was in the thousands, it would be an under-estimate,” Gillin said.

About 17 percent of waterfowl that’s been tested have registered positive for the disease, which is “a substantial number,” Gillin said. The species currently most affected is cackling geese, but the disease is also killing numerous bald eagles, hawks, owls and herons.

Songbirds and wild turkeys have not been impacted, Gillin said, because they don’t typically interact with waterfowl and aren’t a scavenger species.

There’s also concern for snow geese after nearly 400 sick or dead geese were found at Wiser Lake in western Washington state a few days ago and several tested positive for avian flu.

Many of the dead birds were snow geese. Those birds are just starting to arrive in Oregon, so many more could die in coming weeks in our state, Gillin said.

In other states, avian influenza also has been detected in mammals such as skunks, foxes and coyotes -- usually in younger animals.

The disease does not pose a high risk to humans, though some have been infected with bird flu viruses. Still, it’s a mutating disease, officials said, so hunters should wear protective gear like masks and gloves to safely handle wild birds, and they should change clothes when they get home. Hunters should not kill birds that look sick. They also should minimize dogs’ interactions with waterfowl.

Some hunters worry whether the die-offs will impact duck- and goose-hunting seasons, which are now open.

“I’m seeing quite a few dead geese on Sauvie Island and quite a few sick ones as well,” local hunter Eric Strand said via email.

But Brandon Reishus, Oregon’s migratory bird coordinator, said it’s too early to predict. “We have no plans to close hunting down. But it’s an evolving situation.”

The Oregon Department of Agriculture said 16 cases have been confirmed this year in smaller flocks of domesticated birds. That’s a significant increase from the two confirmed cases in 2014-2015 outbreak, said Scholz, the Department of Agriculture veterinarian. More flocks are being tested after an uptick in calls over the past week.

About two thousand domesticated birds have been euthanized or died of avian flu in Oregon this year in reported cases, said Scholz. Some backyard flock owners only use birds or their eggs for home consumption, while others have hundreds of birds and sell their products to the public. The state has imposed several avian flu quarantines this summer and fall to prevent the sale of meat or eggs from virus-impacted areas.

There have been no cases reported in commercial farms – farms with much larger flocks that often are raised in large barns -- likely because they have strict biosecurity measures, Scholz said.

The sick flocks have ranged from 4 to 500 in size. The bigger the flocks, the more birds die quickly – so the risk of the disease to larger farms is significant. In the case of one large backyard farm with about 400 chickens, Scholz said, the birds started dying on Saturday and by Monday there were “barrels of dead birds.” Agricultural officials had to euthanize the rest.

And it’s not just a chicken problem. In addition to hundreds of dead chickens, the outbreak this year has claimed domestic ducks, quail, pheasants, even a couple of emus.

With colder weather and wild-bird migration hitting the high point in coming weeks, the environment is ripe for transmission, Scholz said.

“This kind of weather… it’s a setup for a perfect storm,” he said.

Wildlife officials say it’s OK to double-bag and dispose of one to two dead wild birds in the trash. People can also shallowly bury birds or just leave them where they’re found in the wild.

Officials said people should be careful about handling the birds and should never transport them.

As for domestic birds, responsible owners can help prevent their flocks’ exposure to wild waterfowl by fencing off access to farm ponds or grassy fields, Scholz said.

Domestic flock owners should call the Department of Agriculture if more than one bird in their flock dies in rapid succession, officials said. Reported cases are reviewed by a veterinarian and samples are collected for testing. If the disease is confirmed, all birds are euthanized, said Scholz.

“Avian influenza is 100 percent fatal” for domestic birds, which have not developed the immunity that some wild birds have, he added. “All the birds are going to die from the disease. We would much rather humanely euthanize them then wait for them to get sick and die.”

Bird flu is driving up turkey and egg prices. Why won’t we vaccinate against it? [Vox.com, 22 Nov 2022]

By Kenny Torrella

Bird flu is driving up turkey and egg prices — and killing millions of animals. Why won’t we vaccinate against it?

If turkey’s at the center of your table this Thanksgiving, it’s going to be a more expensive meal than usual. Consumers are spending around 20 percent more on the centerpiece bird than last Thanksgiving.

Some of that can be blamed on inflation, as farmers grapple with higher feed, fuel, and labor costs. But the price hikes are also connected to the nasty Eurasian H5N1 virus, a highly infectious avian influenza burning through poultry flocks around the globe.

So far this year, 8.1 million turkeys in the US have died due to the bird flu — about 3.7 percent of the 216.5 million farmed each year — along with over 40 million chickens. But most don’t die from the virus itself. Rather, they’re culled, or proactively killed, in a brutal effort to prevent the virus from doing even more damage.

The virus is excruciating for infected birds, with a mortality rate as high as 100 percent for chickens. But birds that aren’t infected yet must be culled per US regulations, and they may have it even worse than the sick: The two most common cull methods are suffocating birds with foam, and employing “ventilation shutdown,” in which the birds are cooked alive by closing off vents so temperatures inside the barn rise and the birds slowly die by heatstroke. This particularly inhumane method was used as a last resort in the 2015 US bird flu outbreak, but has become a much more commonly used method in this year’s outbreak.

The carnage has caught the eye of Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), who just introduced legislation to ban the two methods.

While farmers have always had to contend with animal disease, in recent years avian influenza has grown into a serious crisis. During the 2015 outbreak, more than 50 million birds in the US — mostly egg-laying hens — had to be culled, causing $3.3 billion in economic losses. Europe is experiencing its worst bird flu outbreaks in history, while this year’s US outbreak is on the cusp of killing even more animals than in 2015.

Avian flu outbreaks are most common in the fall and spring, as wild birds — the natural reservoirs of the virus — migrate and shed it through fecal droppings, saliva, and nasal secretions. Those contaminants can in turn land on farm equipment, farmworker clothing, or in animal feed, and then spread like wildfire through factory farm operations that can house hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of animals. Outbreaks usually subside during the summer, when wild bird migrations cease — but not this year.

“It’s constantly hitting,” said John El-Attrache, global director of science and innovation at the US vaccine developer Ceva Animal Health. Some experts worry the highly pathogenic bird flu could now be with us year-round.

Researchers speculate the strain is mutating to spread more efficiently than previous versions. Bird flu has even become a conservation problem, as the new strain is infecting twice as many species as during the 2015 outbreak, including vulnerable species like puffins and the endangered bald eagle, along with more mammals than usual.

Make no mistake, a major reason why bird flu is so destructive in the US is that factory farms — with so many chickens and turkeys in such close quarters — are the perfect playing field for the virus, which is why farmers are so quick to cull infected flocks. But that very fact raises a simple, but surprisingly controversial question: If avian flu is so deadly and so economically destructive, why on earth aren’t we vaccinating birds against the virus?

Why we’re quicker to cull than vaccinate
A sobering lesson from the Covid-19 pandemic is that even the best vaccine isn’t good enough on its own to stop a deadly disease — economic self-interest and lack of international coordination can squander good science. The same is true in the global push to stop the bird flu.

There are H5N1 vaccines on the global market — Kansas-based Ceva Animal Health’s vaccine is administered in-ovo (in the egg) or on the day chicks are born, and is 80 to 100 percent effective for almost five months. It’s licensed in the US, as are vaccines by Zoetis and Merck, but none are approved by the USDA for actual use because they would interfere with global trade. Bird flu vaccines are used primarily in countries where bird flu is endemic — meaning outbreaks occur regularly — and which have little to no international poultry trade, like Indonesia, Egypt, and Mexico.

For countries in which poultry exports make up a big share of the industry’s revenue — such as the US and many European countries — vaccines have largely been a nonstarter, even though they have the potential to severely limit the death toll of mass culling. Why? Blame the “DIVA” problem.

DIVA is short for “differentiating infected from vaccinated animals” — the challenge of identifying whether a bird is actually infected with avian influenza, or just has avian influenza antibodies after vaccination. Countries fear that importing eggs or slaughtered meat from vaccinated birds in countries where the virus is circulating could inadvertently spread it within their own borders by introducing the virus to wild or domesticated animals through discarded raw meat. That means that big poultry exporters like the US — which sends 18 percent of its poultry abroad — don’t vaccinate, for fear they’ll miss out on a huge part of their revenue: international trade.

“It’s very simple — if one country is not exporting to somewhere, somebody else will take that slot,” said Carel du Marchie Sarvaas, executive director of HealthforAnimals, a trade group that represents animal vaccine developers.

And without international coordination and predictable vaccine use, it doesn’t make economic sense for vaccine makers to invest in developing vaccines that protect against the bird flu. “We’re not going to make [massive investments] unless we’ve got major markets on board,” said du Marchie Sarvaas. “And the only way you’re going to get major markets on board is if you get some sort of political deal. And that comes to the trade point and the export point.”

In other words, the bird flu vaccine problem isn’t just a veterinary challenge. It’s also a geopolitical coordination challenge, a classic game theory problem where no major poultry-producing country wants to be the first to vaccinate. As a result, everyone sticks with the kill ’em all approach. And vaccination isn’t cheap, so producers and governments have to weigh the cost of vaccination against the cost — and the PR hit — of killing tens of millions of animals in grisly ways. The rapidly evolving nature of the virus also means existing vaccines will offer less protection against future strains.

“The amount of spending on [eradication] is peanuts compared to the amount they make exporting poultry products,” said Jarra Jagne, a Cornell University veterinarian who helps poultry producers manage bird flu outbreaks.

But despite the trade and vaccine development challenges, the conversation has been quickly shifting, especially in Europe.

“We need to vaccinate”

In May, agriculture ministers in the European Union agreed to develop a bird flu vaccination strategy to complement the bloc’s efforts to stamp out the disease, a major departure from the standard “eradication” approach. And there’s a race underway in the Netherlands and France to update old vaccines to protect against the current strain decimating flocks. Several companies and researchers in the US are working on new vaccines as well.

“We’ve heard over the past few years more and more rumblings of, ‘Okay, we need to vaccinate, we need to vaccinate,’” said El-Attrache.

Nowhere were those rumblings louder than at a late October meeting in Paris of bird flu researchers, government officials, and poultry companies, convened by the International Alliance for Biological Standardization. “The goal of this meeting was vaccination,” El-Attrache told me. “That was never the goal of these meetings prior.” At the end of the Paris meeting, a majority of delegates informally voted to support preventive vaccination if trade barriers were resolved, according to the journal Vet Record.

There is concern in scientific circles that since existing vaccines aren’t 100 percent effective in the long term, there could still be birds who don’t show clinical signs of H5N1 but are infected and could spread the virus to other birds, a phenomenon known as silent infection.

But Leslie Sims, an avian influenza expert who’s led vaccination programs in Asia, said at the Paris meeting that research about the threat of silent infection could be “overinterpreted.”

“There’s no logical reason why we can’t design systems to allow us to make sure that in places where a vaccine is being used, it’s being used in a way which retains zero tolerance for infection,” Sims said.

There’s some precedent for Sims’s claim. Ilaria Capua, a veterinarian and former Italian member of parliament, led Italy’s successful vaccination campaign against another type of bird flu, low-pathogenic H7 avian influenzas, in the early 2000s.

“My experience is that it can be done,” Capua said. “Italy never sent or spread any of its viruses to any of its neighboring countries [and trade partners], and in Europe we are one market.”

In an email to Vox, Sims pointed to Hong Kong, the site of the first major H5N1 outbreak among humans in 1997, as a model for how to achieve zero infections with vaccination and advanced disease surveillance. Although Hong Kong doesn’t export poultry — so it need not worry about trade — its multilevel surveillance system is highly effective, he said, and includes “checking all vaccinated flocks to make sure they have responded to vaccines, tests on birds prior to market, tests on dead birds in the wholesale market, and regular retail market surveillance for detection of avian influenza viruses.”

“It really is a question of political trust and trust-building between the major manufacturers,” said du Marchie Sarvaas. There would need to be agreement and coordination on disease surveillance, regular technical and political discussions, and efforts to prevent using vaccination, or lack of vaccination, as a marketing ploy — by stoking fear over silent infection or anti-vaccine sentiment.

“The industry knows there’s no room for complacency; surveillance, biosecurity, and good flock management have proven to be effective in preventing AI [avian influenza] but sometimes only to a certain extent,” said Robin Horel, president of the International Poultry Council, in an email. “Therefore, vaccination could be a useful additional tool if and when used in a well-established regulatory framework.”

New hope on vaccines
Experts told me that while the conversation around vaccinating poultry in the US is opening up, it’s still early days. Before vaccines are approved for market, the political and trade barriers would need to be solved, and vaccine development and manufacturing would need to be ramped up.

A vaccination campaign in the US probably wouldn’t result in the poultry industry vaccinating all of its 9 billion birds. Instead, it might focus on egg-laying hens and turkeys, as they’re more vulnerable to avian influenza than other birds. Chickens raised for meat, known as broilers, account for around 95 percent of poultry and are much less likely to contract the virus because they’re killed at just about 45 days old. Following this logic, the poultry industry could mitigate much of its bird flu risk by vaccinating just a few percent of its national flock.

Capua added that it would also make sense to prioritize vaccinating chickens and turkeys raised near the migratory pathways where wild birds shed the disease.

There’s also the potential risk of human infection from bird flu, or even the start of a new flu pandemic. Earlier strains of the H5N1 avian flu virus killed more than half of the 865 people who contracted it between 2003 and 2022, according to the World Health Organization — though the strain that’s currently tearing through poultry flocks is reportedly much less transmissible and less severe for humans. There have been only a few reported cases in Western countries this year, none severe.

But that doesn’t mean it couldn’t evolve to efficiently transmit between humans, a nightmare scenario for avian influenza experts — and another reason to consider vaccinating birds despite trade fears. “We don’t know if an H5 virus will ever ignite a pandemic [in humans],” Capua said. “But if it does, it’s not going to be like Covid — it’s likely going to be worse, like much worse.”

Bird flu found in northern Israel, same strain as catastrophic 2021 outbreak [The Times of Israel, 22 Nov 2022]

By SARA SERFATY

Turkeys in slaughterhouse near Beit She’an are first cases of avian influenza this winter; surrounding farms quarantined as authorities look to prevent spread to wild birds
Turkeys infected with avian flu were found in a slaughterhouse in northern Israel, the Agriculture Ministry said Tuesday, raising fears of a new outbreak of the virus that ravaged domestic and wild fowl in the country a year ago.

The virus was discovered in turkeys from Kibbutz Shluhot, located near Beit She’an.
Tests revealed that the fowl were infected with the same strain of bird flu, H5N1, which ravaged coops across northern Israel and led to the culling of hundreds of thousands of birds last winter.

Last year saw the virus also spread to wild birds for the first time, leading to the death of 5,000 cranes in the Hula Lake Reserve.

Poultry from the affected slaughterhouse was not sold to distributors and both it and poultry sheds within a 6-mile (10-kilometer) radius of Shluhot were quarantined, the Agricultural Ministry said.

The ministry also called for the immediate transfer of all organic, free-range and other outdoor chickens to closed facilities.

The H5N1 strain is transmissible to humans and last year, experts warned that the danger of the virus spreading to humans was a serious source of concern, though no people were ultimately affected.

Other strains of the avian flu, including H7N9, H5N6 and H5N8 are also transmissible to humans.

Last month, the Israel Nature and Parks Authority said that it stopped feeding migrating pelicans in the north of Israel this year to reduce the chances of bird flu decimating concentrated flocks. Israel sits on the annual avian migration route between Europe, Asia and Africa.

Officials from the Agricultural Ministry also said that they are coordinating with the Health Ministry and Nature and Parks Authority to mitigate the possibility of transmission of the virus between enclosures via wild poultry.

Bird flu cases in Israel are not uncommon, but are usually brought under control quickly by quarantining coops and culling affected fowl.

Authorities said that the 2021 outbreak was partially due to farmers using primitive coops, unsanitary conditions and poor monitoring or reporting by farmers in Margaliot, the northern community where the outbreak originated.

In total, the 2021 avian flu outbreak affected 20 chicken coop complexes — mostly in northern Israel, which include around one million hens — as well as 15 bird habitats.

Environmental Protection Minister Tamar Zandberg called the outbreak “the worst blow to wildlife in the country’s history.”

First bear with bird flu in US was cub in Glacier Bay [KTOO, 22 Nov 2022]

by Raegan Miller

A black bear cub euthanized at Glacier Bay National Park this fall is the first in the country to test positive for a highly contagious strain of bird flu. Park visitors alerted wildlife officials after they noticed the animal’s strange behavior.

The cub was having a hard time walking and struggled to keep up with its two siblings and mother at Bartlett Cove in Glacier Bay National Park.

Kimberlee Beckmen is a wildlife veterinarian for the state’s Department of Fish and Game. She says concerned park visitors captured videos of the cub in October.

“They thought it was drunk — it was stumbling, and then was abandoned by the mother,” Beckmen said in a phone interview Tuesday.

Those symptoms are common with the strain, also called H5N1. It causes exhaustion and neurological problems like seizures.

Beckmen says the bear had no chance of survival at that point.
“It was very sad to see the animal (was) not going to recover,” she said. “Its brain was swollen, and it would have died, probably within hours, had it not been euthanized.”

After euthanizing the cub, scientists took swabs and a sample of the bear’s brain to test for rabies and canine distemper. They sent the samples to labs in Washington and New York for analysis.

Beckmen says the results came back positive for the strain of flu known as highly pathogenic avian influenza, sometimes called “high-path AI.”

“We do test all wildlife that die with clinical signs or that are suspicious of having inflammation in the brain — encephalitis — for rabies,” she said. “We had to do the rabies testing on this animal before we could test it for high-path AI because of the risk from the tissues if it was infected with rabies.”

It’s the first time the strain has been spotted in an Alaska bear. Wildlife officials say two foxes have also tested positive this year — one in Unalaska and one in Unalakleet.

Beckmen says the only other bear diagnosed with the strain was an adult female black bear in Quebec.

“Because it was the first report in the U.S., that makes it reportable to the World Organization for Animal Health. They’ll report (to) the federal government … because of it being considered a foreign animal disease and of international importance, it’s reportable,” she said.

Beckmen says the cub found at Bartlett Cove was likely infected after scavenging a sick or dead bird.

“They have to inhale a large dose (of the virus) while they’re scavenging infected birds, then get that virus laden into their respiratory passages,” she said. “It does not go bear-to-bear.”

Animals can also become infected by the virus by ingesting water that has been contaminated by sick waterfowl. She says the risk to humans is very low — just four people have tested positive for the H5N1 flu worldwide, and just one in North America.

But the virus has devastated poultry and wild birds — nearly 50 million have been killed or euthanized this year alone, according to the CDC.

In Alaska, wildlife officials say the Matanuska-Susitna Borough is still a hotspot for infections among backyard flocks. Beckmen also says Sitka has recently seen infections among eagles. Fish and Game also reported infections among shorebirds, ravens and waterfowl statewide this summer.

Wildlife officials say residents should report sick, orphaned or dead animals to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

Bird flu: UK is seeing its largest ever outbreak – which may prove particularly deadly for wild birds [The Conversation, 22 Nov 2022]

The outbreak of avian influenza which has hit the UK since the autumn of 2021 is the largest the country has ever seen. And the picture is the same across Europe and the US, which are reporting a similar picture. To date, this outbreak has led to the death of nearly 100 million poultry birds around the world.

But the disease doesn’t only threaten poultry and egg production – it also threatens wild bird populations in a way that it never has before. While drastic action has been taken to control the spread of avian flu in domestic birds, these efforts may be insufficient alone to mitigate the impact on wild bird populations.

Typically, western Europe’s avian flu season starts in the autumn, when millions of migratory birds from colder climates – such as geese, ducks and swans – arrive for the winter. If these wild birds come into contact with domestic poultry, any pathogens they’re carrying can spread to these populations. It’s a time that poultry farmers and other bird keepers dread, as certain strains of bird flu (in particular highly pathogenic avian influenza, also known as HPAI) can be extremely deadly. Come springtime, when wild migratory birds return to their summer breeding grounds in eastern Europe and Asia, avian flu wanes with their departure.

Or, at least, that was the pattern in recent decades. But, since the autumn of 2020, this has changed.

Previous outbreaks of HPAI among UK poultry have been relatively rare. But between November 2020 to March 2021, 24 cases of HPAI were reported. This situation has only worsened since then, with more than 150 confirmed cases of HPAI between September 5 and November 17 of this year alone.

Similarly, between 2017 and 2019, only 40 UK wild birds tested after their death were found to be positive for HPAI. But this rose to 317 in 2020-2021 and 1,468 since October 1 this year.

Usually, HPAI causes mass mortality among poultry while the majority of wild birds seem less affected. This is one feature that makes the current avian flu outbreak so unique. To date, 15 species of seabirds have tested positive for HPAI for the first time, and die-offs in some species, such as great skuas, are worrying due to their magnitude and potential to threaten the species’ persistence in the UK.

Moreover, the seasonal downturn in cases of avian flu didn’t happen during the spring as confirmed outbreaks continued among poultry and wild birds over the summer.

Avian flu virus
Bird flu is caused primarily by an influenza A virus, which is closely related to other influenza viruses. These mutate rapidly and can combine genetic material from other influenza viruses into their genomes in order to produce new variants.

New strains of avian flu are typically imported during each bird migration season. But we are increasingly witnessing new strainsemerging within the UK and other European countries over winter. The current H5N1 strain of HPAI, seems to be more infectious and more fatal to poultry, and more persistent in wild bird populations. It’s also able to affect a greater diversity of species than previous strains.

And, with a greater number of wild birds infected, this is likely to mean that there have been more opportunities for infected or contaminated wild birds to come into contact with poultry. This may also have contributed to the current high number of cases.

Great skuas have been particularly affected. Gestur Gislason/ Shutterstock
There are still many things that we don’t know about the current outbreak of avian flu, which is why the government has set up a task force to investigate. One factor this task force is looking into is whether the current strain can survive in the environment outside an animal host (a phenomenon known as environmental persistence). If this is possible, it may help explain why so many wild birds are being infected by the current strain of HPAI – and why outbreaks continued over the summer.

Containing the virus
The UK government has introduced a range of measures to contain avian flu. All British poultry farms are required to implement stringent biosecurity practices to help prevent their flocks from catching the virus, including housing free-range birds to prevent contact with wild birds, and regularly cleaning and disinfecting housing. Dead wild birds and poultry suspected of having avian flu are also being tested for the virus. If a single bird in a poultry flock is found with avian flu, the entire flock must be culled to prevent the disease from spreading.

Birds are not the only species that can become infected with avian flu. In the past, some strains have made the jump to mammals, including humans. There were 883 reported human cases of a H5N6 strain (which is not currently present in Europe) worldwide between 2017 and 2020. But this tended to manifest itself primarily among people working very closely with birds. There has only been one human case of H5N1 reported during the current UK outbreak, so risks to people are thought likely remain very low. The disease can also be effectively controlled with a course of antiviral medication if it does develop.

While measures to control avian flu help mitigate risks to poultry and people, they do little to help wild birds. This could be a problem both for the persistence of the current outbreak and the conservation of some threatened species, which are already under pressure due to human-induced changes to the environment.

The immediate future for HPAI looks rather bleak for the UK which can expect ongoing outbreaks among poultry and die-offs among wild birds continuing into next autumn and winter. The government’s task force will publish its findings next year, and will answer many questions about the current HPAI strain. But many more questions may need to be answered before we know how best to get the current outbreak under control.

Thousands of turkeys affected after bird flu hits Pennsylvania's popular Jaindl Farms [WPVI-TV, 10 Nov 2022]

By Annie McCormick

State officials did not name the farm, but David Jaindl says 14,000 turkeys at Jaindl Farms were affected.

NORTH WHITEHALL TWP., Pennsylvania (WPVI) -- A popular Lehigh Valley turkey farm had to destroy thousands of turkeys after the bird flu disease was detected in a flock.

David Jaindl of Jaindl Farms in Orefield, Pa. says 14,000 turkeys were affected.

According to the USDA, the agency that tracks the cases, 21 commercial flocks have been affected in Pennsylvania.

Similar outbreaks are happening across the country.

Prior to the impact, Jaindl sat down for an interview where he spoke about the flu and inflation.
"It's tough because the product is limited across the country so you're going to see higher prices this year," Jaindl said.

Authorities are setting up a control area and surveillance zone around the farm to hopefully prevent the flu from spreading.

Many of the Jaindl turkeys intended for Thanksgiving were processed before the outbreak, Jaindl said.

Jaindl has supplied turkeys to the White House in the past.

"We are confident that we will have an adequate supply of turkeys for the Thanksgiving holiday," Jaindl said.

Jaindl says bird flu issues have reached 46 states and have affected 50 million birds across the country since February.

The bird flu and inflation are hiking the costs of turkeys across the country.

Data from the USDA shows a dramatic increase in the cost of fresh turkey after the 2015 bird flu outbreak -- and an even higher jump after this year's outbreaks.

Pennsylvania poultry operations continue to experience threats from highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI). The disease is highly contagious to birds and almost always fatal, according to the state Department of Agriculture.

According to the CDC, there are no reports of any human cases of the avian flu in the United States.

Bird flu is a huge problem now – but we’re just one mutation away from it getting much worse [The Guardian, 9 Nov 2022]

By Devi Sridhar

Lockdowns are a horrible experience, but fortunately one that is in the past now. Unless, that is, you’re a domestic bird in Britain. Since 7 November, a UK directive has instructed all farmers to keep their birds indoors as part of a stringent measure to stop the spread of avian flu, or the H5N1 virus. This measure is intended to avoid infection of domestic birds from wild birds, and will result in tens of millions of chickens, ducks, geese and turkeys being brought inside for the foreseeable future. We’ve also seen island birds affected, resulting in the shutdown of human visitors to the Isle of May in Scotland for five weeks, among other measures.

Avian flu is known as one of the most infectious diseases: the R number,which was often discussed for the spread of Covid-19, can be as high as 100 for avian flu, meaning one bird can infect as many as 100 others. And the past few months have seen exponential spread of the virus, with Britain and Europe hit especially hard. A lab in Surrey that tests samples says it has seen a 600% increase in cases in the past three months.

Why is this outbreak causing concern not just among scientists but also poultry farmers and government officials? Currently, avian flu outbreaks have been limited in humans because the virus doesn’t spread easily between us. But this is a ticking timebomb. A mutation that makes this virus circulate more easily between humans is possible. This would be a gamechanger and raise the risk to humans considerably. And the more chances the virus has to jump into a human and mutate, the more likely it is a dangerous strain will emerge that could set off the next pandemic.

While humans have been infected by birds, they are usually workers on poultry farms and those in close contact with infected birds, and even these instances have been rare. For example, on 3 November, two farm workers in Spain tested positive; it was the second known infection of humans in Europe since 2003. Infection is usually through handling sick or dead birds.

Infected birds have the flu virus in their saliva, blood, mucus and faeces, and humans can get infected if they get this virus into the eyes, nose or mouth, or inhale droplets in close range (you can’t get infected with avian flu by eating fully cooked poultry or eggs). And this virus is not mild. The fatality rate is thought to be high in humans: the World Health Organization estimateis roughly 60% for H5N1. We currently have no vaccine to use in humans; nor does the seasonal flu vaccine work against avian flu.

But while the chance of human transmission is a future worry, right now the virus is affecting people’s livelihoods and farms, and putting hundreds of millions of domestic and wild birds in danger. Outbreaks in chickens can kill the entire local population; in other birds, such as ducks and geese, the disease is often mild or even asymptomatic. Ducks have even been called the “Trojan horses” for the virus, given their ability to carry it and infect others while remaining unaffected themselves.

Bird flu is highly infectious and poses a high risk to chickens and turkeys. As a result, if a farm tests positive for bird flu, the entire flock is culled. This can lead to hundreds of thousands to millions of pounds in lost income, and places enormous strain on poultry farms. It also has implications for the price and availability of turkeys and chickens going into Thanksgiving and Christmas. And, of course, it is a tremendous loss of bird life.

The heart of the issue is how we raise and treat animals, and their interactions with humans. Poultry are often kept in difficult conditions where they are packed into close quarters and diseases easily pass through them. Some experts think that this more infectious strain developed in an industrial factory environment, where animals are kept in close quarters and viruses have the chance to circulate and mutate.

And this is not just an issue with avian flu, but other infectious diseases as well. In places such as China and India, antibiotics are freely given to animals in order to prevent infection (especially in industrial farming) and to make them as large as possible. A survey of chicken farmers in China found that they all used antibiotics. The rationale here is cheap and fast meat to meet the growing demand in emerging economies.

But this creates its own problems. Feeding antibiotics to animals can lead to the emergence of resistant bacterial strains, and then humans such as farmers becoming infected with antibiotic-resistant infections. These then circulate in humans and reduce the effectiveness of one of the most powerful drugs in modern medicine. Chemotherapy, infections and surgeries of all kinds have become safer because of antibiotics. If the drugs don’t work, these procedures become high-risk and life-threatening, as they used to be in the pre-antibiotic era. And as we’ve learned, all it takes is for a person to get on a plane with a novel infectious disease for it soon to become a problem for everywhere else in the world.

The major infectious disease threats in humans tend to come from animals: think of Sars-CoV-2, Sars, Mers, Ebola … the list goes on. There are more than a million viruses circulating in the animal kingdom, and it would be a fool’s errand to try to stop that circulation. But we can limit the chances these have to jump into the human population, and limit their circulation in domestic animals. This requires taking the animal-human interface seriously, and knowing that while it’s a major economic, animal welfare and farming problem now, the situation becoming even worse is just a mutation away.

A near-record bird flu outbreak means you'll likely have a harder time finding a Thanksgiving turkey this year—and you'll probably pay more [Fortune, 8 Nov 2022]

BYERIN PRATER

Finding a Thanksgiving turkey this year will be an early Christmas miracle, and you’ll probably pay a pretty penny if you manage to.

The average price of a whole frozen turkey is $2.45 per pound—nearly 75 cents more per pound than last year, according to a Nov. 4 report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The reason: a bad season of bird flu that could end up as one for the history books.

More than 49 million birds in 46 states have died as a result of the bird flu so far this year, either because of the virus itself or having been killed to curb exposure of other birds, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a Thursday report.

The largest bird flu outbreak in U.S. history occurred in 2015, in what the agency has called “arguably the most significant animal health event in U.S. history.” That year, 50.5 million birds in 21 states died, according to the CDC. This year’s total isn’t far behind, and already a larger number of states are affected.

The strain affecting birds this year is H5N1, deemed a “highly pathogenic avian virus” by the CDC. Since January, it’s been detected in wild aquatic birds, commercial poultry, and backyard and hobby flocks. Some highly pathogenic avian viruses, known as HPAIs, similar to H5N1 are known to damage multiple organs and kill from 90% to 100% of chickens they infect.

The good news: The virus is currently thought to pose little risk to humans, and only one human case has been reported so far this year, according to the CDC. The patient, a poultry farm worker in Colorado, was treated with antivirals outside of the hospital and suffered only fatigue, according to the World Health Organization. Two cases were reported in poultry workers in Spain last week.

The bird flu has caused a range of illnesses in humans before, from mild to severe. Thus, the CDC urges caution when interacting with birds, both at work and at home. To avoid contracting the bird flu or spreading it to other birds or animals like pets, the agency recommends that people:
• Avoid direct contact with wild birds when possible.
• Realize that birds don’t have to look sick to carry bird flu.
• Don’t touch birds that look sick, or dead birds, without wearing protective equipment.
• Don’t touch surfaces that might have saliva, mucus, or feces from any type of bird, wild or domestic, and certainly don’t touch your eyes, nose, or mouth if you do touch such surfaces.
• Wash your hands after touching birds.
• Use protective equipment like gloves, an N95 respirator or a well-fitting face mask, and eye protection, if you work with birds.
• Change your clothes after working with sick poultry and/or after handling wild birds. Throw away your PPE and wash your hands with soap and water.

The USDA reminds consumers to cook all poultry and eggs to an internal temperature of 165˚F as a general precaution.

Microbiologist discusses widespread impacts of bird flu in the UK [Phys.org, 7 Nov 2022]

The largest ever bird flu outbreak has hit England, with hundreds of cases being identified within the last year and more than 5.5 million birds dead or culled since October 2021—with both figures set to rise significantly in the next few months. The UK Government has announced all poultry and captive birds must be kept indoors from Monday 7 November to combat the spread.

Kingston University Professor of Medical Microbiology Mark Fielder explains why the current strain is so contagious, how best to control the spread and the effect the outbreak is having on farmers, retailers and the UK economy.

"This specific strain of avian flu emerged last year and unusually it hasn't really gone away. As it doesn't seem to be disappearing, it's proving particularly problematic," Professor Fielder said, reflecting on the current H5N1 strain of influenza circulating in birds.

"It is an effective pathogen (disease causing agent), as we've seen a lot of sea birds and migratory birds dying and now it's expanded into the pheasant population. It's also capable of killing poultry such as chickens and turkeys, which could potentially cause issues around food availability—particularly in the run up to Christmas."

The strain is highly pathogenic, which means the virus can cause significant illness to, and quite often kill, the birds affected. "Because it's an airborne virus it can readily spread by close contact. Due to natural migration of birds globally, the disease has spread as birds make stops along their migratory routes and perhaps feed or drink from the same places as domestic birds. The virus has then traveled along migration paths which include United Kingdom and this is why we're seeing such a large outbreak in England right now, particularly in the Norfolk and Suffolk area."

Impact on the food supply chain
Professor Fielder said the outbreak has potential to impact on food supply, with commodities such as chicken, duck, goose, turkey meat and eggs at threat. "The impact on the British national flock is likely to hit the incomes of farmers, who particularly rely on the demand for these meats up to and over the festive period. The situation is also affecting the game bird industry and unfortunately, because the outbreak is so widespread, farmers currently have challenges claiming compensation so it's a difficult time for the farming community."

What actions have already been taken?
The government is hoping to combat the spread after it announced a lockdown for all poultry and captive birds—measures Professor Fielder believes will help.

"In the main hotspots, like the east coast of England, there have already been avian influenza protection zones put in place which means you can't move birds in or out of a certain radius—they have also introduced mandatory housing flocks to minimize exposure. The national prevention method will ensure all captive birds are under housing and kept apart from wild birds—it's almost like social distancing for birds and although it's not a solution, it will certainly help protect our national flock and parts of our economy," he said.

What further measures could be implemented?
"One thing we might see going forward is the vaccination of commercial flocks, captive birds and show animals. It's obviously not an easy thing to do and it has a cost implication but is one possible way to address the spread. What we're trying to do is minimize the chances of avian flu becoming an endemic disease, which means it is permanently here—we are not at stage yet but it's not to say it might not happen in the future."

How can the public help minimize spread?
As it currently stands, the disease can't be passed onto humans but Professor Fielder has urged the public to take precautions, where possible.

"If you find a dead bird or one in distress, don't touch it and instead report to Defra with a time, location and, if you know it, the species. If you feed birds in your garden make sure you wash your hands thoroughly after you've tended to the feeder or bird table. Finally, if you do keep birds as pets, including chickens, finches or even a domestic budgerigar, make sure you keep them at home for the foreseeable future—it's all about keeping us apart from the virus as well as we possibly can," he said.

Mutated avian flu spreading in Bay Area is like COVID for birds [SFGATE, 6 Nov 2022]

by Thomas Smith

Local wildlife specialists are preparing for the worst as avian influenza, also known as bird flu, spreads in the Bay Area. The virus is highly contagious, has no cure and impacts species ranging from pigeons and poultry to owls and raptors. If it continues to spread, millions of Bay Area birds could die.

The virus was first detected in Northern California in July. “To date, there’s been 55 detections of [highly pathogenic avian influenza] in wild birds in Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano and Sonoma counties,” Ken Paglia, a spokesperson for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, told SFGATE.

These initial cases are likely only the tip of the iceberg. “It is estimated that millions of birds have already perished as this virus has worked its way across the country,” WildCare’s Wildlife Hospital in San Rafael said in an email, and the same fate could befall the Bay Area.

The virus is unpredictable and could be “devastating” for birds, WildCare spokesperson Alison Hermance told SFGATE, but “because the Bay Area is smack in the middle of one of the four migratory flyways in North America, it is winter migration and we have massive numbers of raptors and waterfowl in the Bay Area, we are preparing for the worst. … There are horror stories from other wildlife care centers about how many birds have died from it.”

Bird flu can sicken and kill nearly any bird, and the Bay Area is home to eight endangered bird species, all of which could be at risk from the virus.

The Bay Area has seen bird flu outbreaks before — the most recent one occurred about seven years ago, Hermance said. This time, though, the virus has mutated and is much more contagious.

“It’s like going from flu to COVID,” Hermance told SFGATE. “Millions of birds are dying across the country from this strain, as opposed to a few hundred waterfowl in a particular area from previous virus strains.”

That’s bad news for the Bay Area’s wild birds, especially because the new strain of bird flu is nearly 100% fatal to raptors, some of the region’s most threatened species. “Many different species of wild birds may be susceptible to infection, and many birds may die of infection, unlike previous outbreaks with different [highly pathogenic avian influenza] viruses,” Paglia said.

The virus could have devastating economic impacts on Bay Area farmers, too.

Bill Mattos, president of the California Poultry Federation, said “this strain of avian flu is virulent and deadly to turkeys, chickens and egg layers. We have lost up to 300,000 turkeys that had to be depopulated from the disease.”

Although farmers have kept the disease out of most flocks so far, Mattos said, “winter is coming, and this disease is spread primarily by flying birds.” The poultry industry’s biosecurity is thus on “high alert.”

Amateur Bay Area chicken keepers are worried about their flocks as well.

“I’ve taken biosecurity pretty seriously since I have over 30 birds in my mixed flock,” Kimberly Pelham, an amateur chicken keeper in the North Bay, told SFGATE. “I keep my runs covered to keep out hawks, wild birds and other critters. If any of my birds die unexpectedly, I’ve always taken them up to UC Davis for a necropsy.”

According to the journal Science, previous bird flu outbreaks in the Pacific Northwest and Canada “killed an untold number of wild birds” and forced farmers to euthanize almost 33 million chickens and turkeys. A 2014 outbreak made farmers cull 50 million birds, racking up $3 billion in losses.

“I discourage wild birds from visiting and am putting up covered runs soon,” said Rebecca Fernandez, who keeps chickens in Oakland. “One of my friends has an acquaintance that had their whole flock put down by the state because of avian influenza. It’s good to take it seriously.”

Bird flu is considered low risk for humans, at least in its current form. According to the World Health Organization, about 450 people have diedfrom bird flu since 2003.

But as with any contagious virus, there’s always the possibility of a jump to humans. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says bird flu infections in humans remain rare, but the agency acknowledges that a “shift” could occur, in which the virus jumps to humans.

“While a ‘shift’ of this kind has not occurred in relation to avian influenza viruses,” the CDC says, “... It is also possible that the process of genetic reassortment could occur in a person who is co-infected with an avian influenza A virus and a human influenza A virus.”

Such a genetic reassortment could yield viruses that are “more likely to result in sustained human-to-human transmission and have pandemic potential,” the CDC says.

To reduce that long-term human risk — and to keep birds safer in the short term — Bay Area residents can take several steps. Like many viruses, bird flu spreads via aerosols, bodily secretions and even the clothing and shoes of human handlers. Experts recommend changing clothes, especially shoes, after interacting with domestic birds and removing bird feeders and baths, especially if you have pet birds or keep backyard poultry.

Officials have also warned against feeding birds at public ponds and lakes.

As the virus continues to spread, small wildlife hospitals could quickly become overwhelmed.

“Wildlife hospitals are all small nonprofits already reeling from COVID,” Hermance said. “An influx of birds requiring quarantine space is a major challenge, as is the mental and emotional toll on our staff and volunteers having to deal with sick and dying birds and making euthanasia decisions.”

If you see a wild bird that appears sick, call your local wildlife hospital before approaching it. Several Bay Area wildlife hospitals maintain 24/7 hotlines for people to report sick or injured wildlife.

Japan faces widespread bird flu cases [Prensa Latina, 4 Nov 2022]

The said prefecture is the first in the country in egg production, with revenues of approximately 45.2 billion yen (306 million dollars) in 2000, according to NHK.

Eliminating those birds as a preventive measure implies heavy economic losses for the farmers.

Amid fears, Japanese authorities stress that there is no history of human illnesses caused by consuming eggs or meat infected with the H5 avian influenza and therefore ask distributors and consumers to be reassured.

The highly pathogenic avian influenza was confirmed in poultry farms in Okayama Prefecture and Hokkaido in late October.

Over 1 mil. chickens being culled as bird flu hits east Japan's Kanto region - The Mainichi [The Mainichi, 4 Nov 2022]

by Toru Morinaga

MITO -- The culling of some 1.04 million chickens at a farm in Ibaraki Prefecture has begun, after the first avian flu cases this season in east Japan's Kanto region around Tokyo have been confirmed.

The Ibaraki Prefectural Government announced on Nov. 4 that many chickens had died at a poultry farm in the city of Kasumigaura and that a genetic test confirmed they were infected with the highly pathogenic avian flu.

The prefectural government received a report from the farm on Nov. 3 and performed a genetic test, whose result came back positive the following day. The prefecture has imposed restrictions on 27 poultry farms within a 10-kilometer radius of the affected farm. Ibaraki Prefecture is the largest egg producer in Japan.