Iowa Now Has 14 Counties That Have Confirmed Avian Influenza
Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza continues to spread through Iowa as another case has been confirmed in a northern Iowa county.
The latest case in Iowa has been detected in Kossuth County, the 14th county this year, this time it is on a noncommercial backyard flock. This means, there will be little impact on the price of eggs, unlike other outbreaks/ detections.
It is still unknown the type of flock or the number of birds that are affected by this recent detection.
Iowa still leads the country with avian influenza detection with over 13 million birds affected. Buena Vista, the county with the most flocks affected has accounted for around 5.5 million of those losses.
This detection comes just two days after a flock in Bremer County confirmed avian influenza. Prior to that, Iowa went two weeks with zero cases detected.
Since February, 33.07 million domestic birds have been impacted by avian influenza across the US.
To help slow the spread, Governor Kim Reynolds passed an order that cancels all live bird exhibits for at least 30 days. It will continue to be in place until there has been a 30-day period without any confirmed cases of HPAI in domesticated poultry in the state.
The department reminds flock owners to prevent any contact between their birds and wild birds to lessen the spread.
According to the CDC, the recent cases of avian influenza are not an immediate public health concern. There have been no human cases of the virus detected in the United States.