Missouri turkey farm quarantined after bird flu detected

ST. LOUIS (AP) — The U.S. Department of Agriculture says the first commercial case of bird flu in the country this year has been confirmed at a turkey farm in southwestern Missouri.

USDA spokeswoman Lyndsay Cole said Thursday that the H7N1 avian influenza, a low-pathogenic form, was detected through pre-slaughter testing on a farm in Jasper County that houses 20,000 turkeys. The state put the farm under quarantine.

Cole says two other commercial poultry properties within 6 miles of the farm tested negative for influenza.

The low-pathogenic flu is different from the high-pathogenic virus that resulted in the loss of nearly 50 million birds in the Midwest in 2015. Cole says the low-pathogenic virus poses no risk to the food chain.

Jasper County is about 140 miles south of Kansas City, Missouri.

Free News Delivery by Email

Would you like to have the day's news stories delivered right to your inbox every evening? Enter your email below to start!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

For security, use of Google's reCAPTCHA service is required which is subject to the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

I agree to these terms.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.