MONKS – More than 4 million chickens in Iowa will have to be sacrificed after detecting a case of bird flu at a large egg farm, the state announced Tuesday.
Employees are in the process of slaughtering 4.2 million chickens after the highly contagious disease was detected on a farm in Sioux County, Iowa, the latest case in an outbreak that has spread for years and is now affecting also to dairy cattle. The virus was confirmed last week at an egg farm west of Minneapolis, Minnesota, leading to the culling of nearly 1.4 million birds.
In total, 92.34 million birds have been killed since the outbreak began in 2022, according to the federal Department of Agriculture.
Spread
Although bird flu has become common among poultry, its spread to cattle has increased concern about the disease. In May, a second dairy farm worker was diagnosed with bird flu, and the virus was detected in both beef and milk. Its presence has been confirmed on dairy farms in nine states.
Health and agriculture officials have stated that the risk to the population remains low. The United States Department of Agriculture declared that meat from a sick dairy cow failed to enter the country’s food supply and that the beef remains safe for consumption.
Workers exposed to infected animals are at increased risk. The only three confirmed human cases in the United States include two dairy workers and a man who worked slaughtering infected birds at a poultry farm.
Source: AP
