“High path” bird flu was identified in backyard flocks in central Illinois and eastern Kansas, said a USDA agency on Saturday. The outbreak in Franklin County, Kansas, about 55 miles southwest of Kansas City, was the farthest west that highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) has been confirmed in a domestic flock this year.
With the latest cases, bird flu has been discovered in 14 states and at 29 sites since Feb. 8, when the viral disease was confirmed on a turkey farm in southern Indiana. Most of the outbreaks were east of the Mississippi River. Three million birds, mostly chickens and turkeys, have died of bird flu or were culled in efforts to keep the disease from spreading. HPAI can quickly wipe out a flock.
The U.S. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service said the Kansas outbreak was in a “backyard mixed species poultry flock” and the Illinois outbreak, in McLean County, was in a “non-commerical backyard flock (non-poultry).” Bloomington is the largest city in McLean County, which is 120 miles southwest of Chicago.
More than 50 million chickens and turkeys died in an HPAI epidemic that ran from December 2014 through June 2015. The epidemic has been described as the worst animal-disease emergency in the United States, with a cost to the poultry industry of $3.3 billion.