In the second year of the outbreak of avian influenza in the United States, the government's response costs are increasing. The continuous outbreak of avian influenza has caused losses of about 661 million dollars in the United States, and officials have slaughtered more than 58 million birds to curb the spread of the virus.
In addition to the cost announced by the US Department of Agriculture and the increase in the price of eggs, chicken and turkey, farmers who raise poultry have lost more than US $1 billion, an agricultural economist said.
As the avian influenza epidemic enters its second year, the spring migration season of birds is approaching, and the epidemic has not yet ended. Apart from the epidemic prevention measures that have been taken, farmers can do little.
Different from previous years, the virus that caused the highly pathogenic avian influenza survived in the high temperature last summer, resulting in an increase in the number of reported cases of avian influenza in autumn.
The spread of the epidemic has exceeded the major avian influenza epidemic in the United States in 2015. In the current outbreak, more than 300 commercial farms in 47 states in the United States have killed 58.4 million birds. Only Hawaii, Louisiana and West Virginia have not reported cases of avian influenza. Iowa is the largest egg producer in the United States, with nearly 16 million birds slaughtered in the epidemic. In the last major bird flu epidemic (2015), more than 200 farms in 15 states of the United States slaughtered about 50 million chickens and turkeys.
Virus spread, avian influenza is no longer limited to birds
The virus is no longer confined to birds. In the United States, there are more and more wild mammals that have died or been killed due to the outbreak of avian influenza: grizzly bears in Nebraska and Montana, a red fox in Montana, six skunks and raccoons in Oregon, and a Kodiak bear in Alaska.
Then in January 2023, the World Health Organization reported that a young girl in Ecuador was infected with avian influenza, which was the first case of this kind in the history of Latin America.
U.S. officials said that bird flu will not pose a major threat to human health. Human cases of bird flu infection are extremely rare, and no infected bird is allowed to enter the U.S. food supply. Cooking poultry to 165 degrees Fahrenheit (about 73.8 degrees Celsius) can kill any virus.
During the outbreak of bird flu, only one American man was confirmed to be infected with bird flu. He has been helping a farm in Colorado to kill and remove infected birds, and was cured a few days later.
What does avian influenza mean for human health?
In fact, avian influenza is a general term for several influenza viruses. The virus strain of common concern is H5N1. Each alphabetic number classifies the types of virus surface binding proteins. In birds, H5N1 is mainly a virus of gastrointestinal tract infection transmitted through feces.
Humans may be infected with H5N1 respiratory virus in two ways: through animals or through human-to-human transmission, which is suspected to be transmitted from person to person in only a few and basically unproven cases. The latest case of infection occurred 10 years ago.
To be sure, at present, the risk of human infection with avian influenza is very small, but there are too many kinds of influenza, so we should be alert to the possibility of its mutation.