An early surge confirms bird flu is back in Minnesota
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Minnesota farmers have been fending off highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) every year since the USDA detected the ongoing outbreak in 2022.
The disease came to Minnesota earlier this spring and was later eliminated for about a month and a half, according to Minnesota Board of Animal Health Assistant Director Shauna Voss.
That period of time was a breath of fresh air for her and her team.
“But we never completely just wash our hands of this and walk away,” said Voss. “We continue to prepare for the next thing.”
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The team’s break ended on Sept. 1, when HPAI was confirmed in a Wright County commercial flock of 29,800 birds. Since then, seven commercial flocks and three backyard flocks have had confirmed cases. That’s more than 260,000 birds.
The fact that HPAI was detected in early September is disappointing, Voss said. Usually, the disease pops up in October. It’s unknown why HPAI is here so early this fall.
“That's the one constant thing about influenza viruses,” said Voss. “They're unpredictable, and they're always changing.”
How does HPAI work?
HPAI is a bird flu strain that’s deadly to poultry and can annihilate whole flocks in mere days.
The disease arrives here through migratory birds from Canada trying to reach warmer climates in the south. When they make pit stops in Minnesota, they mingle with healthy birds and spread the illness.
“It’s just like kids going back to school,” said Voss. “They have to share all of their things and all of their viruses, and so that is when we start to see cases because we’ve got a lot of activity happening through our flyway, right in the heart of where we have a lot of poultry production.”
Minnesota leads the nation in turkey production, with producers raising about 45 million birds annually. By the time migratory birds reach more southern states, Voss said the virus load decreases.
When HPAI is detected, the response often entails culling bird populations, cleaning the barn where they lived, completely disinfecting the site and waiting for weeks before restocking with new birds.
HPAI has been regularly detected in Minnesota over the past four years. Voss said it was unusual when the disease first appeared in the state. Now, while her team still treats disease responses seriously, it’s become much more routine.
“That doesn’t mean that it's not tiring for our response team, so making sure that all of our responders get a break and they can go back and do their regular work on top of it is a really important thing to monitor,” said Voss.
Developing a vaccine against HPAI is tricky because many countries with trade agreements with the U.S. don’t accept vaccinated birds.
That means Voss and her team are left to hope that at some point the virus will disperse from the wild bird population.
“At least for the near future, we should expect that we will have spring outbreaks and fall outbreaks,” said Voss. “I think until that virus really changes and hopefully at some point it dissipates out of our wild bird population, until we get there, I think we're in this for the long haul.”
