In the past month, nearly 400,000 birds in commercial flocks have been affected by the avian flu outbreak in Missouri, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
According to that same data, Missouri had the second-largest number of flocks affected in the nation during that period, trailing only Ohio.
Affected birds don’t necessarily have the virus, but they live in places where the virus has been found.
Avian flu – also called bird flu or H5N1 – is a virus that infects domestic and wild birds. It’s also been reported in cattle and other domesticated livestock and, in rare cases, humans.
It has been found in 13 of Missouri's commercial poultry producers and egg farm flocks in the last month.
While the number of birds affected is high, the total number of flocks affected in the state is relatively small. A small number of larger farms reported the virus, said Lincoln University state poultry extension specialist Tatijana Fisher.
“It’s a lot of birds being affected because they're all in the same facility,” she said. “They're housed on the same property, basically. And so if you're looking at a bird number, that still looks massive, but it's one facility, so it kind of depends on how you're counting it.”
More than 100 million birds have been culled in the United States as the H5N1 outbreak continues to ravage flocks around the country.
The spread of the virus among laying flocks and meat birds has sent prices of eggs skyrocketing. In response, the USDA this week announced a $1 billion plan to fight the outbreak.
Fisher said she knows the public wants to know when the outbreak will end, but that it’s hard to tell what will happen in the future.
“In the best case, this fizzles out in the summer,” she said. “The worry is that it's gone on, and now we're coming into the fourth year.”
It’s possible the virus could spread more as migratory birds return this spring, she said. Wild species such as geese and ducks can carry the virus and infect flocks of livestock.
“We've seen a number of different species that are impacted – wild species as well as domestic – and that's been what's super unique and kind of scary about this particular outbreak,” Fisher said.
Fisher said unlike other states, Missouri has farms in all sectors of the poultry industry - turkeys, chickens and eggs.
For now, the state’s outbreaks have been localized in Lawrence, Jasper and other counties in the southwest part of the state.
