ATLANTA (AP) — For the first time since the 2022 national outbreak, avian flu has hit a poultry producer in Georgia, the nation’s top state for chicken production.
The state Department of Agriculture announced Friday that it had detected a case of highly pathogenic avian influenza at a commercial poultry producer in Elbert County, about 100 miles (165 kilometers) northeast of Atlanta. The agency has suspended all poultry exhibitions, shows, exchanges, meetings and sales.
The virus has been detected four times in Georgia, but only in backyard flocks, including among 13 chickens and ducks earlier this month in Clayton County, south of Atlanta.
“This is a serious threat to Georgia’s No. 1 industry and to the livelihoods of thousands of Georgians who make a living from our state’s poultry industry,” Georgia Agriculture Commissioner said , Tyler Harper, in a press release.
The producer first noticed clinical signs of avian flu on Wednesday in Elbert County, according to the release. The Georgia Poultry Laboratory Network confirmed a positive detection of the virus Thursday afternoon, which the USDA National Veterinary Services Laboratory also confirmed Friday. The site had around 45,000 broiler breeders when avian flu was detected.
The Georgia Department of Agriculture’s Emergency Management dispatched its state agricultural response teams to the site Friday to “conduct depopulation, cleaning, disinfection and disposal operations.”
All commercial poultry operations within a 10 kilometer radius have been quarantined and will undergo at least two weeks of surveillance testing.
Georgia Poultry Federation President Mike Giles said in a statement Saturday that he is cooperating with state and federal officials and that testing processes are already in place to ensure that all poultry-based products of chicken sold for consumption was safe to eat, local media reported. The federation represents the state’s producers.
“This approach to protecting the safety of poultry products produced in Georgia will continue throughout this response and beyond,” Giles said.
A spokesperson for the Georgia Department of Agriculture said it does not provide the name of an affected site when an animal disease breaks out to prevent unauthorized access to the farm that could trigger a spread. wider range of disease and to protect the farmer from harassment.
Avian flu spread, kill millions of wild and domestic birds worldwide over the past two years, among other animals.
Nationally, the virus was detected in 84 commercial and backyard flocks last month, with 10.7 million birds at those sites, according to the latest online data released by the U.S. Department of Health. Agriculture. This has also been confirmed on dozens of dairy farms.
Although human cases are rare and occur mainly among agricultural workers, one person has died from bird flu – a man from Louisiana aged over 65, hospitalized for serious respiratory symptoms.
