Bird flu ravages US, Turkey farms…more than 20m chicken, 5m turkeys killed

Eight of these are said to have occurred in commercial turkey and two in commercial chicken farms which have recorded previous outbreaks.The 143 outbreaks so far have affected a total of 29,907,671 (29.9 million) birds.The most recent report from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) of the US Department of Agriculture confirms 11 […]

Eight of these are said to have occurred in commercial turkey and two in commercial chicken farms which have recorded previous outbreaks.
The 143 outbreaks so far have affected a total of 29,907,671 (29.9 million) birds.
The most recent report from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) of the US Department of Agriculture confirms 11 new outbreaks of high-path avian flu in US poultry on 5 May.
APHIS said in each of these outbreaks, the cause has been confirmed as “the H5N2 sub-type of highly pathogenic avian influenza virus of mixed Eurasian and American origin,”
The report stated that the latest cases bring the total number of confirmed high-path avian flu outbreaks since December 2014 to 133.
Three of the early outbreaks were caused by the H5N8 sub-type of the virus but in all those since mid-February 2015, an H5N2 variant of mixed Eurasian and American origin has been confirmed.
The majority of outbreaks has been in commercial turkey (100); 19 have been in commercial chicken, one in a mixed commercial flock and 13 in backyard flocks.
The number of poultry affected by these outbreaks now exceeds 25.71 million. This figure includes more than 20.32 million commercial chicken and 5.31 million commercial turkeys as well as 7,173 backyard poultry.
Meanwhile, two outbreaks of avian influenza have been confirmed on northern Turkey; the H5N1 highly pathogenic virus has been identified in one of the cases.
According to Turkish news agency Anadolu Agency, teams from the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock are culling chickens.
On Sunday, the government announced that bird flu had been detected following the deaths of 40,000 chicken in Bandirma over the previous four months.
 On the same day, Turkey reported an outbreak of H5N1 bird flu virus in the northern province of Kastamonu, the first case of the highly infectious strain in seven years.