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Iowa officials work to contain avian flu

Iowa secretary of agriculture Bill Northey says his department is working closely with the USDA to contain the outbreak of the H5N2 bird flu on a turkey farm in Buena Vista County in northwest Iowa.

“We’ll actually have a quarantine on that facility and the facilities nearby that, whether they are backdoor flocks or whether they are commercial flocks in that area — all avian flocks — so, chickens or turkeys or other birds that are in that area,” Northey says. “We’ll do testing to ensure that it hasn’t spread to any other birds in that area.”

The chief veterinarian for the USDA, Dr. John Clifford, says while all birds are susceptible to the virus, turkeys are especially susceptible to this particular strain.

“This particular virus—the H5N2—has shown to be a lot more deadly in turkeys,” Clifford says. “You reach a mortality of close to 100 percent where chickens may have a little more resistance to it.  Their mortality rate is still high if they get it, like 60 percent.”

Northey says the 27,000 turkeys at the farm in Buena Vista County will be destroyed along with other measures to try and prevent the spread of the disease.  That farm will not be able to resume production for close to nine months.