Not Done With Avian Influenza

It seems even the winter months can't keep high path avian influenza at bay. A new outbreak has been discovered in Indiana. The unknown strain of influenza has been designated as H7N8 and officials are acting quickly to assess the threat. The outbreak was confirmed on Friday at an Indiana turkey farm. Dr. T. J. Myers, Associate Deputy Administrator of USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

MYERS: This is a different strain of virus than the strains that we saw during the 2015 outbreak which were primarily H5 influenza viruses and as you may recall from the past outbreak influenza viruses are categorized by their "H" and "N" proteins and there are a number of "H" and "N's" but regardless of what those numbers are it is a highly pathogenic virus which means it is a significant virus that does need an immediate response.

That response has been to make sure the outbreak does not spread to any other flocks.

MYERS: Since the outbreak last year and all the lessons learned from that there's been a lot of good work to increase our preparatory efforts at the federal side, the state side and at the industry side. Industry and poultry producers have been doing a lot to strengthen their biosecurity so we are hopeful that as we respond very quickly to this virus that we can get it contained and hopefully not see an outbreak like we did last year.

The northwest was hard hit last year and the government is continuing to monitor birds here in the region to keep any additional flock infections at bay.

And that's Washington Ag Today. I'm Greg Martin, thanks for listening on the Ag Information Network of the West.