Penn State University’s College of Agricultural Sciences announced it is testing the university’s dairy herd for avian influenza out of “an abundance of caution.” Video above: Pennsylvania farm leaders on alert as bird flu spreads on livestock farms. The announcement comes as an outbreak of bird flu has affected dairy cows in more than a dozen states since March, the college said in a statement. The testing will be done as part of the state’s voluntary testing program, which aims to obtain data on the health of Pennsylvania’s dairy herds and detect bird flu as quickly as possible. “The state’s herd surveillance program involves testing milk from a farm weekly for three weeks,” Penn State Extension veterinarian Ernest Hovingh said in a statement. “If all tests are negative and no clinical signs of disease are observed, the herd is considered ‘unaffected.’ At that point, weekly testing will continue, to ensure the herd remains free of the virus.” For herds not part of the testing program, those animals must be tested before crossing state lines. “Because Penn State does not move dairy cows between states, our herd has not yet been tested,” Hovingh said. “But participating in this program will allow us to determine if our herd is indeed free of HPAI, as was highly anticipated, and will also provide additional data to inform state and national surveillance efforts.” The university says the chances of a positive test are low, but if one does occur, Penn State and state officials “will immediately investigate further.” Test results will be released after a series of three weekly tests.
Penn State University’s College of Agricultural Sciences said it is testing the university’s dairy herd for bird flu out of “an abundance of caution.”
Video above: Pennsylvania farm leaders on alert as bird flu spreads through livestock farms.
The announcement comes as an outbreak of avian flu has affected dairy cows in more than a dozen states since March, according to a statement from the college.
The tests will be conducted as part of a voluntary state testing program aimed at obtaining data on the health of Pennsylvania’s dairy herds and detecting avian influenza as quickly as possible.
“The state’s herd surveillance program involves testing a farm’s milk weekly for three weeks,” Penn State Extension veterinarian Ernest Hovingh said in a statement. “If all tests are negative and no clinical signs of disease are observed, the herd is considered ‘unaffected.’ At that point, weekly testing will continue to ensure the herd remains free of the virus.”
For herds that are not part of the testing program, these animals must be tested before crossing state lines.
“Because Penn State does not move its dairy cows across state lines, our herd has not yet been tested,” Hovingh said. “But participating in this program will allow us to determine if our herd is indeed free of HPAI, as we had strongly hoped, and will also provide additional data to inform surveillance efforts at the state and national levels.”
The university says the chances of a positive test are low, but if one occurs, Penn State and state officials “will immediately investigate further.”
Test results will be released after a series of three weekly tests have been completed.
