While the United States continue to deal out with a substantial irruption of theH5N1 bird flu , officials have now reported the country ’s first outbreak of H7N9 – another often deadly line – in commercial poultry since 2017 .
The first sign of the outbreak came onMarch 8 , when wimp at a commercial broiler breeder readiness in Noxubee County , Mississippi , began die in significant numbers . Such sudden death in gamy telephone number is a typical indicator of highly pathogenic avian influenza ( HPAI ) , better known as bird influenza , and testinglater revealedthis to be the example .
It would be graspable to assume that the responsible for bird flu strain was H5N1 , give way the way that it’sdevastated poultry farmsacross the US – but on March 17 , the Mississippi Board of Animal Health ( MBAH ) confirmed that the flock had in fact been taint with another strain of HPAI , known as H7N9 .
“ This H7N9 virus is a fully North American ( AM ) virus of wild fowl - parentage and is unrelated to the Eurasian H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b virus currently circulating in the United States , ” the MBAH said in astatement .
The board also confirmed that no septic bird had entered the nutrient system and that the integral flock – consisting of over 47,000 raspberry , according to a story from theWorld Organisation for Animal Health – had since been culled . While no further incidences of H7N9 have been reported , officials are continuing to increase monitoring throughout Mississippi .
This is the first outbreak of extremely pathogenic H7N9 in commercial poultry in the US since2017 , when two farms in Tennessee were detect to have domestic fowl infect with the strain .
Like H5N1 , H7N9 can infect both hiss and humans and can causeserious illnessand demise . According to theWorld Health Organization(WHO ) , as of January 31 , 2024 , there have been 1,658 confirmed human cases of H7N9 transmission since 2013 , 616 of them fateful .
However , the jeopardy of exposure for the general world is reckon to be miserable , with most cases of H7N9 infection look after late exposure to live poultry . Human - to - human transmission is also thought to be rare .
The return of another fowl flu strain come in amid a somewhat tumultuous fourth dimension for the US ’s response to H5N1 . Whilst the US Secretary of Agriculture recentlyannounced a $ 1 billion planto curb HPAI – and bring down egg prices – the move from the Biden to Trump government has seen disruption , include thefiring and set about rehiringof some people working on the bird flu response .
