Proactive Testing Leads to NC HPAI Dairy Discovery
Proactive Testing Leads to HPAI Dairy Find in NC
With your Southeast Regional Ag News, I am Haylie Shipp. This is the Ag Information Network.
Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza has been confirmed in a dairy herd in North Carolina. HPAI has previously been detected in dairy herds in six other states. State Veterinarian Dr. Mike Martin says cows from a herd in Texas that had not been showing signs of HPAI were shipped to Idaho, Michigan and Ohio and subsequently presented clinical signs of the illness. It was then learned that cows from that same herd had been transported to North Carolina...
“USDA recommendations at the time were we do not test any herds that do not have clinical signs. But because Idaho, Ohio, and Michigan all started having cows that had these signs that then tested positive for high path AI, we went ahead and moved forward with testing this herd preemptively. And it has no clinical signs with this disease. And sure enough we have been able to isolate highly pathogenic avian influenza virus from this herd.”
Dr. Martin says North Carolina has taken a proactive approach in getting out in front of the outbreak...
“Nobody else has done this as far as doing this level of investigation and epidemiology. And we did this against the recommendations that were at the time from USDA. But we are doing everything we can to try to protect our animals here in North Carolina and protect the privacy of any of these farms that may be affected either now or in the future.”
That’s North Carolina State Veterinarian Dr. Mike Martin.
