An outbreak of bird flu at a commercial egg plant in Colorado prompted Gov. Jared Polis to declare an emergency Tuesday, allowing the plant to receive state aid. According to ABC affiliate Denver 7, officials say 1.78 million chickens will also have to be killed after samples from the producer submitted to Colorado State University tested positive for highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI).
“Why do you see [bird flu] “The flu is more prevalent in northern Colorado because we have a large concentration of livestock farms in that area. So we’re seeing it in poultry and we’re seeing it in cattle,” Dr. Kristy Pabilonia, who leads the lab, said in an interview with the outlet. “Whether that’s commercial poultry or backyard flocks, it’s really devastating because of that high mortality rate. … In birds, the response is usually to depopulate them because they’re very sick and they’re not going to survive the flu.”
Colorado’s state veterinarian has asked local poultry producers to file health reports on their flocks and has issued a quarantine order in parts of Weld County, where the facility is located, to restrict bird shipments. More than 6 million birds have reportedly been affected by HPAI since the outbreak began in early 2022, and Pabilonia said cattle in the state have also been affected. The spread of the virus from birds to mammals has long worried scientists, who warn that these mutations could cause a pandemic like COVID.
Although bird flu has affected 145 dairy farms in 12 states, Colorado tops the list of reported HPAI outbreaks on dairy farms, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. People are also getting the virus, with the fourth human case reported last week, also in Colorado.
As Keith Poulson, director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, told Salon earlier this week, “We really need to pay attention to this virus; we can’t allow it to remain endemic in our dairy herds.” But it’s clear that poultry farms remain just as vulnerable to HPAI as this crisis continues.