USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has added a further 13 outbreaks to its list of Avian Influenza Findings since yesterday.

All these outbreaks were in commercial turkey flocks in Minnesota – in the counties of Meeker (three outbreaks), Stearns (three), Kandiyohi (five), Redwood (one) and Otter Tail (one).

At least 430,300 birds are known to have been affected but the number will be higher as the bird count is pending in three of the outbreaks.

All these were in the area of the Mississippi flyway for migrating wild birds and were caused by the H5N2 variant of the virus.

Overview of high-path avian flu outbreaks in US poultry

• The latest cases bring the total number of high-path avian flu outbreaks since December 2014 to 71.
• Outbreaks have occurred in poultry in 13 states.
• Three of the early outbreaks were caused by the H5N8 sub-type of the virus but in all those since mid-February 2015, the H5N2 variant has been confirmed.
• The majority of outbreaks have been in commercial turkeys (57); three have been in commercial chickens and 11 in backyard flocks.
• The number of poultry affected by these outbreaks has reached a total of more than 7.3 million. This figure includes over 4.1 million commercial chickens, 3.2 million commercial turkeys and over 7,000 backyard poultry.
• The disease has also affected five captive wild birds.

Further Reading

You can visit the Avian Flu page by clicking here.