Avian flu spreads across US states

A deadly form of avian influenza has spread across the eastern half of the United States, killing commercial flocks of chickens, turkeys and wild birds, but officials said it does not pose a threat to humans.

On Tuesday, agriculture officials in Indiana said the disease had hit a sixth commercial turkey farm in the southern part of the state, and they have begun euthanizing the 16,500 birds at the farm to prevent the spread of the disease.

Federal health officials have announced 297 detections in waterfowl as of Monday, according to the US Department of Agriculture, or USDA. Of 45 new detections, 21 were from testing of live birds in New Jersey.

To monitor outbreaks, the USDA said it is collecting samples in 25 different states, coordinating with state wildlife or natural resources departments.

Before the outbreak, the last time an avian influenza case was reported in the US was in 2016, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

It is unclear how the latest bird flu cases began, but health officials said migratory wild birds are likely spreading the disease.

Officials were shocked at how quickly the virus is killing the animals, saying they are dying within hours of the initial infection.

Since early January, the virus has made its way through factory farms and migrating ducks, geese and swans from Florida to Maine, and the virus has been identified in backyard chickens in Virginia and New York.

No human cases of avian influenza have been detected in the US, said the CDC.

Officials have emphasized that the avian influenza detections do not present an immediate public health concern and consumers need not take any action.

Mutation possibility

But the increasing infections among birds may increase the possibility of the virus mutating in a way that would infect humans, officials said.

"Scientists always assumed the next pandemic would be a respiratory influenza," Gail Hansen, a public health veterinarian who is the former state epidemiologist for Kansas, told The New York Times. She noted that influenza viruses have historically been behind pandemics that affect humans.

"We were wrong with COVID, but it's these kinds of viruses that keep us awake at night."

Avian influenza has the potential to cause significant financial loss to the poultry industry in the US. A bird flu outbreak from 2014 to 2015 caused more than 50 million birds to die or be euthanized. That affected more than 200 farms in 15 states and cost the industry more than $3 billion, causing prices of poultry and eggs to soar.

New cases of bird flu have also appeared in more than 40 countries in Asia, the Middle East and Europe over the last six months, with 300 outbreaks in 29 European countries in the past few weeks.