NASHVILLE, TENN. (RFD-TV) — It is migration season, and with it comes an increase in the spread of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI). One expert explains how it wipes out flocks quickly, forcing farmers to take immediate action.
“So, highly pathogenic avian influenza — we call it that because that leads to at least 75% mortality rates, and this particular strain (H5N1) was closer to 90-94%,” said Dr. Jada Thompson. “So, the conversation always comes up: why do we have to depopulate the houses? First of all, 94% of these birds are dying. These commercial chickens and turkeys are going to die. What we’re doing in depopulating early is trying to reduce the amount of virus that could potentially get into the air.”
Dr. Thompson says the effects of such a deadly strain reach far beyond farms, impacting consumer prices.
“Why are the egg prices so high right now?” Dr. Thompson states. “This disease has been around. Part of this is the scale of the number of birds that were impacted. So, I’m going to give an example of that in a second. There’s a temporal effect as well. So, what I mean by that is it is additive. So when we think about how one house gets hurt, we can move some eggs around in that supply chain. The more eggs that are taken out of that system, or more birds are taken out of the system, that means there are fewer eggs, and that becomes an additive effect, and there’s a biological lag.”
While there has been an increase in HPAI outbreaks this migration season, the CDC says the public health risk is low.
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