Poultry Biosecurity a Part of the Defend the Flock Program

Highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses can severely affect domestic animal wildlife and sometimes human health. According to the US Fish and Wildlife Service outbreaks of Eurasian Linage Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza viruses have been impacting domestic poultry and wild bird populations in Europe and Asia since August of 2020 and has made its way to North America in late 2021. With additional virus introductions since then, HPAI cases have now been confirmed in both domestic and wild birds in numerous locations throughout Canada and the United States. The strain of HPAI now found in North America has caused extensive deaths of wild birds and commercial flocks. USDA Chief Veterinarian, Rosemary Sifford talks about informational resources to help poultry producers protect their flocks from the HPAI such as recent funding for programs and USDA’s Defend the Flock Campaign.

“We are hoping to also use some of this funding to help us in our preparation and building our capacity to respond to these events through things like some additional biosecurity training and some additional work on developing templates for biosecurity audits and materials to help producers improve their biosecurity or defend the flock campaign is the centerpiece of our resources for producers lots of activities and information available online. “

For information on the Defend the Flock Program go to aphis.usda.gov.