H5N2 hits two more Minnesota turkey farms
Robert Roos
CIDRAP News
Apr 06, 2015
The highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N2 virus has struck two more turkey farms in central Minnesota, the sixth and seventh ones in the state to be hit in a little more than a month, federal and state officials announced today.
One outbreak occurred in Stearns County—which already had two previous outbreaks—at a farm that lies within the control area that was set up around one of the earlier ones, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) said in a statement. The second outbreak is in Kandiyohi County, which borders Stearns on the southwest.
The Stearns County incident involves a farm housing 76,000 turkeys, the USDA said. Only one of three barns on the farm was affected, said Bethany Hahn, a spokeswoman for the Minnesota Board of Animal Health (MBAH), but plans call for destroying all the turkeys to check the virus’s spread.
In Kandiyohi County, the virus hit a farm holding 26,000 turkeys, the USDA said. Just one of four barns on the farm was affected, Hahn reported, but plans call for culling all the turkeys there as well. The USDA described the turkeys as a “molting breeder replacement” flock.
In both cases, increased deaths in the flocks prompted testing by the University of Minnesota Diagnostic Laboratory in St. Paul, and the findings were confirmed by the National Veterinary Services Laboratories operated by the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) in Ames, Iowa.
Midwest first affected Mar 5
The Rest…HERE
