The H5N2 virus, known as avian influenza, has decimated much of the poultry in the Midwest so harshly that turkey and chicken producers in the Midwest have lost over 6.7 million birds since early March. Meanwhile, The U.S. Department of Agriculture is attempting to create a vaccine made of a seed strain to target the H5N2 virus as well as other viruses in the H5 family around the nation.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Wednesday confirmed that avian influenza in 13 turkey flocks in Minnesota with at least 430,300 birds. The USDA has data showing since late 2014, the virus attacked commercial and backyard flocks with a combined estimate of at least 8 million birds.
On Monday, the H5N2 virus was found at an Iowa egg-laying operation with 3.8 million hens, followed by its discovery Tuesday at four turkey farms with over 425,000 birds. The same day, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker authorized the state’s National Guard to help fight the flu in three counties.
Poultry-producers in the East fear the virus could be transmitted to them from wild waterfowl when they fly south for the winter next autumn.
William Rehm, the president of Daybreak Foods Inc., which found 80,000 egg-laying hens infected, said, “This is a catastrophe for both the turkey and the egg industries. Some USDA veterinarians are starting to believe the virus is spreading from particulates in the air.”
The USDA's Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory in Athens, Georgia, is working on the seed strain for the vaccine; it will be tested in early May. The USDA would ask the private sector to produce the vaccine if it is successful. Steve Olson, executive director of the Minnesota Turkey Growers Association and the Chicken and Egg Association of Minnesota, said that producers would rather absorb the cost of the vaccine than lose their flocks of birds.
James Sumner, president of the Georgia-based USA Poultry and Egg Export Council, expressed concern that foreign countries could bar poultry imports from the U.S. because the vaccine could mask viruses, as the tests for the flu check for antibodies, which the vaccine catalyzes the body to produce.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention although humans could contract the flu, that the risk to people from bird flu is low. John Clifford, John Clifford, the chief veterinary officer of the USDA, said avian flu “is not generally an aerosolized virus, it’s not spread easily that way.”
