On prime of all the pieces else, now a extremely pathogenic avian influenza pandemic is ripping throughout the US, and it has already resulted within the deaths of just about 2.8 million birds. A lot of the birds which have died have been chickens or turkeys. And since this was simply within the very first month of the pandemic, there is no such thing as a telling how dangerous it might ultimately turn out to be. What’s going to the eventual dying toll appear to be? Will or not it’s within the tens of tens of millions? That’s positively a chance. And what would occur if the chicken flu mutates right into a model that spreads simply amongst people? We would need to begin eager about that, as a result of that’s potential too.
I knew that the chicken flu outbreak was dangerous, however I didn’t know that it had gotten this dangerous. The next comes from a distinguished farming web site…
With new outbreaks in Iowa and Missouri, practically 2.8 million birds — virtually solely chickens and turkeys — have died in a single month because of extremely pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), the Agriculture Division mentioned on Monday. The viral illness has been recognized in 23 poultry farms and yard flocks in a dozen states since February 8, when the primary report of “excessive path” chicken flu in a home flock was reported.
2.8 million useless birds in only one month.
Will subsequent month be even worse?
And the variety of states which have detected chicken flu has really gone up since that article got here out. Nebraska simply grew to become the thirteenth state to detect a constructive case of HPAI.
To me, one of the crucial alarming issues is that this flu simply retains hitting extra industrial flocks. On Monday, officers introduced {that a} industrial flock of turkeys in northwest Iowa had been affected…
Officers introduced Monday that they’ve recognized chicken flu in a industrial flock of fifty,000 turkeys in northwest Iowa, the state’s second case of a virus that has been recognized in a number of U.S. states.
Iowa agriculture officers and the U.S. Division of Agriculture confirmed the case in Buena Vista County, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of the case recognized March 1 in a yard flock of 42 geese and chickens in Pottawattamie County.
When one chicken in a flock checks constructive, all the birds should be put down.
That’s how authorities attempt to comprise the illness.
But it surely simply retains popping up in extensively numerous locations. Simply try what has taken place inside the previous few days…
Up to now few days officers have recognized the virus on a southeast Missouri farm with 240,000 broiler chickens, a industrial blended species flock in southeastern South Dakota and an egg-laying hen operation in northeast Maryland.
That is really a nightmare.
And we simply realized that the H5N1 pressure has been detected at one more poultry farm in Delaware…
One other Delaware poultry farm has recognized the extremely pathogenic avian influenza pressure amongst their inhabitants, in accordance with Delaware Division of Agriculture officers.
Based on officers, a pullet operation in New Citadel County recognized the H5N1 pressure following federal laboratory testing.
The entire chickens at that facility have been quickly “depopulated”, and officers are assuring us that no contaminated birds will enter the meals system…
It’s the first time since 2004 that avian influenza was recognized in an space broiler farm, officers with the Delmarva Hen Affiliation (DCA) mentioned Wednesday. All affected premises have been quarantines, and birds are being or have been depopulated to forestall unfold. Birds from affected flocks won’t be distributed to the meals system, officers mentioned.
At this level, this pandemic is not only restricted to at least one geographic space.
There have been plenty of circumstances on the east coast, and there have been circumstances as far west as Nebraska and South Dakota.
Mainly, the realm that has been affected already covers about half the nation, and we’re only one month into this new plague.
Allow us to hope that it stays simply in birds, as a result of if it jumps to people we’re going to have an actual catastrophe on our arms.
Since 1997, chicken flu has had about a 50 % dying price in people…
From 1997 to now, greater than 880 folks worldwide have been contaminated, with roughly a 50% case fatality proportion. That features 20 circumstances and 7 deaths in Hong Kong between 1997 and 2003.
The excellent news is that the strains which are circulating across the globe proper now don’t unfold simply to people.
However similar to COVID, chicken flu is mutating on a regular basis.
And scientists have warned us that it might ultimately mutate right into a pressure that does unfold simply amongst people.
Late final yr, two folks in China died after catching a pressure of the chicken flu often known as H5N6…
China has reported to extra H5N6 avian flu infections in people, each deadly in individuals who have been sick in November and died in early December, Hong Kong’s Centre for Well being Safety (CHP) mentioned in an announcement at the moment.
The sufferers are a 12-year-old woman and a 79-year-old man, each from the town of Liuzhou in Guangxi province. That they had each been at a live-poultry market earlier than they obtained sick and began experiencing signs 1 day other than one another, suggesting that they may be relations. The woman and the person died 1 day aside, the person on Dec 3 and the woman on Dec 4.
Personally, I’ve at all times been extra involved about H5N1, however the fact is that if any pressure have been to start spreading like wildfire amongst people the dying toll could be catastrophic.
However even when this chicken flu pandemic stays solely in birds, we’re going to lose tens of millions upon tens of millions of chickens and turkeys at a time when meals costs have already been hovering into the stratosphere.
The worldwide meals disaster that we now have been warned about is already right here, and so this new plague has come at a extremely, actually dangerous time.
We proceed to be hit by one factor after one other, and it looks as if every new day brings much more dangerous information.
When you get pleasure from consuming hen or turkey, I’d top off now, as a result of costs are solely going to go increased from right here.
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