Second Case Of Bird Flu Detected In Hamilton County

The second flock of birds has been affected by highly pathogenic avian influenza, or HPAI, in a central Iowa county.

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Yesterday, the virus was confirmed by the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship confirmed the virus a flock of commercial turkeys

**Map is from April 2**

The latest case was detected in a flock of 16,200 turkeys in Hamilton County. The first case in the county was also in a commercial turkey flock and was detected March 28th.

Now, adding the most recent case of bird flu, around 13,306,745 birds have died due to bird flu in 2022.

The virus seems to be spreading quickly. In the week of March 28th to April  4th, there were seven affected flocks in Iowa totalling 6.7 million birds having to be put down.

As of Monday, 22.8 million birds in 24 states have died due to the virus in 2022.

According to Iowa Capitol Dispatch when the 2015 outbreak of HPAI hit the United States, Iowa was also the hardest-hit state. Of the 50 million birds that were affected in the US, two-thirds of that were from Iowa.

Back in 2015, the outbreak only lasted two months, however, there is no way of knowing whether it will be that way this year. This year, the first detection of the disease also came around 6 weeks earlier than in 2015.

The Department of Ag is reminding bird owners to continue to use biosecure practices to midigate the spread of the disease.

Numbers and information are from the USDA data. Data on the site can often take a few days to update after state agriculture officials announce new detections.