United States: Colorado Gov. Jared Polis declared a disaster emergency after an avian flu outbreak in the commercial egg facility, allowing the facility to have state resistance.
More about the news
The official’s report states that 1.78 million chickens will have to be culled after the samples submitted to Colorado State University were found to be positive for highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), as ABC affiliate Denver 7 reported.
According to Dr. Kristy Pabilonia, the lead of lab tests, “Why you’re seeing [bird flu] more in northern Colorado is because we have a big concentration of livestock operations in this area. So we’re seeing it in domestic poultry, and then also cattle,” as salon.com reported.
Pabilonia added, “Whether that’s commercial poultry or backyard flocks is really devastating because of that high mortality rate … With birds, the response is typically to depopulate them because they are very sick and they’re not going to survive influenza.”
Further actions taken by authorities
The veterinarian of Colorado State asked the local poultry farmers to send reports of their flock’s health.
The authorities have also issued a quarantine order in parts of Weld County, where the facility is situated, to restrict bird shipments.
Millions of birds are affected by the outbreak
According to Pabilonia, almost 6 million birds have been affected by HPAI ever since the outbreak began in 2022, and the state cattle have also been affected by it.
Therefore, the virus jumps from birds to mammals has led scientists to worry and issue warnings of current mutations of the virus, which could also initiate a pandemic-like situation, as salon.com reported.
According to the US Department of Agriculture (DEA), bird flu contracted in 145 dairy farms across 12 states in the US, where Colorado has the highest infection cases.
Moreover, human cases of contracting the virus were also reported in Colorado.
As per Keith Poulson, director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, “We really need to pay attention to this virus; we can’t let it continue to be endemic in our dairy herds,” as salon.com reported.