The US is experiencing an unprecedented poultry health disaster caused by a highly contagious bird flu virus.
The culprit is a type of bird flu called HPai. Since February, when the first cases were reported in commercial flocks, it has wreaked havoc on farm flocks and chicken yards in 46 states.
Since the beginning of the year, more than 50 million birds have perished. The current outbreak began in the winter and lasted through the summer despite the fact that the previous outbreak ended in June.
Richard Webby is the director of the World Health Organization's Collaborating Center for Studies on the the Ecology of Influenza in Animals.
The majority of birds are being culled to stop the spread of the disease. Millions of chickens and turkeys were raised in barns and backyards to be eaten.
This is what you need to know about the outbreak in the U.S.
More than 1 million birds have been killed in each of 11 states that stretch from Utah to the Midwest and on to Delaware.
Two egg-laying operations in Iowa had to kill more than 5 million birds.
The outbreak is being driven by wild birds not by farm-to- farm transmission. The intersection of the Central and Mississippi flyways was the location of many early infections. The virus spread as those birds traveled.
Webby, who is a member of the infectious diseases department at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, tells NPR that it seems to be able to grow and transmit better in wild birds.
He says that wild birds are the best way to spread a Viruses.
The majority of wild aquatic birds show no symptoms even though they have been exposed to the flu. The first case of the H5N1 flu in the US since 2016 was found in an American wigeon duck in South Carolina. The virus spread to more states as more reports poured in.
The CDC notes that a highly pathogenic bird flu can cause disease that can affect multiple internal organs with mortality up to 90% to 100% in chickens. ducks don't have any signs of illness
It is very rare for a human to be bitten by a bird. A person with the H5N1 virus was reported in Colorado in April. After a few days of fatigue, the patient recovered.
The nation's food supply isn't at risk due to the virus. According to the CDC, heating food to an internal temperature of 165 F kills anybacteria andviruses present.
The bird populations haven't seen viruses like this before, so in terms of their immune response, they're all nave to this.
He says it's like a kid in a candy store.
The U.S. experts were prepared for an outbreak of the H5N1 flu virus. The virus doesn't seem to go away now that it's here.
The challenge, according to Webby, is that the bird flu has spun off several different types of concern. The current version of the virus is known as clade 2.3.4.4b.
Webby says that it's like an omicron variant because it's so widespread.
Viruses are able to change quickly. The bird flu has changed since it arrived in the US.
"When the virus came over into the Americas, it started to interact with the viruses that we have in our wild birds here," Webby says.
Webby compared the current U.S. virus to the one in Europe, saying they looked very similar. The viruses we have here are different from the ones in Europe.
Webby warns that it will take months to understand if wild bird populations will build up an immunity to the virus.
Chicken is a good choice if you like to eat it. Chickens raised for meat, as well as turkeys, are unaffected by this version of the flu.
Amy Hagerman is an assistant professor at Oklahoma State University who specializes in agricultural economics.
"The chicken that most people think of, their chicken tenders, their chicken sandwiches, all of those things have not tended to have the same kind of impact," she says.
It can be difficult to link a price hike to the virus in a time of inflation and supply chain problems. If just a few farms have to dispose of their flocks, the US egg prices can be affected.
The complexes are over a million birds. It takes fewer egg-laying operations being affected by HPAI to drive up the price of eggs and egg products.
Because turkey farms tend to be smaller and the cases have been spread out over time, producers have mostly been able to absorb the losses, building up stocks of frozen turkey ahead of the end-of- year holidays.
"So, yes, we certainly saw an increase in turkey prices in this holiday season, but not as much as we might have anticipated given the extent of this outbreak," he said.
There are a number of trade headaches that can be caused by the presence of the virus in the food chain.
A lot of countries don't use vaccines for this disease.
Timing on a vaccine is one of the biggest problems. You need two doses of the vaccine to be effective.
"If you have a bird that has a very short feeding window before it's ready for harvest, that can be a lot more challenging because you also need to allow the withdrawal period after the vaccine before the bird is harvest," she says.
It's difficult to know if a bird is sick with the flu but isn't showing symptoms because they've been vaccined.
If the virus is found to be endemic in birds, the calculations might change.
"My gut feeling is that we're headed that way in the Americas as well."
"These are actually discussions that are going on now," Webby says, describing ideas such as what kind of post-vaccine surveillance would be needed to "ensure your trading partners are happy that the virus is not circulating silently."
According to experts, poultry farms should be credited with limiting the disease as much as possible. After the first known wild case of the flu in the current outbreak, it's still here.
When the weather is hot, flu goes away for most of the time.
The outbreak came when Hagerman worked at the USDA's animal and plant health inspection service.
The earlier outbreak was brought about by bright sunshine and heat.
The wild bird population did not go down to zero over the summer. She says that the virus sort of simmered through the summer months and then we see a resurgence in the fall.
Europe is on two years of HPAI and the long outbreak is discouraging.
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