Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton declared a state of emergency because of avian influenza that has hit nearly four dozen poultry farms in the state and resulted in the loss of hundreds of thousands of turkeys, reports the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. “It also has hit the first Minnesota chicken farm,” J&A Farms, near Detroit Lakes, which has 300,000 egg-laying hens. Owner Amon Baer said federal compensation for the loss of the flock will not cover the expense of cleaning and disinfecting the laying houses.
Some 70 poultry farm workers have decided to take preventive medicine against the flu, a Minnesota state health official told Reuters. No human infections have been reported in Minnesota or in the rest of the nation. Federal officials say the risk to humans from the bird flu is believed to be low.
In Wisconsin, the state Agriculture Department said three new outbreaks of bird flu were found this week, including at an egg farm with 800,000 hens in Jefferson County. Also hit were a flock of 90,000 turkeys in Barron Country and another of 87,000 turkeys in Chippewa County. Altogether, 1.2 million birds have been affected since the first discovery in Wisconsin on April 11.
The Iowa Agriculture Department said bird flu was found in a commercial flock of 34,000 turkeys in Sac County, within a few miles of an outbreak on a poultry farm in Buena Vista County. It was the third case in the state.
The USDA’s running tally says 7.36 million birds have been killed by avian influenza, or marked for destruction as a safeguard against spread of the disease, since outbreaks began last December in the Pacific Northwest. The USDA tally does not include the 300,000 hens in Minnesota, the 34,000 turkeys in Iowa or the three most recent cases in Wisconsin totaling 977,000 turkeys and chickens. U.S. officials believe the disease is spread by droppings from migratory wild birds. They have advised poultry producers to follow rigorous sanitation protocols.
The USDA list of avian influenza outbreaks is available here.