America Is Losing the ‘Epic Battle’ Against Bird Flu
By Patrick Thomas, Feb. 23, 2023, NY Times

Mr. Hickman of Hickman’s Egg Ranch said his largest facility houses about 4 million cage-free chickens, which are too many chickens in one locale. “We would never do that again,” he said.

New facilities will be smaller, housing about one million birds each, he said, and spaced farther apart because of the threat of continued outbreaks.

In December, workers at one of Hickman’s farms in Colorado found dead birds in one of the barns. After test results came back positive for avian influenza, all 300,000 birds at the farm were individually asphyxiated using carbon dioxide gas.

Mr. Hickman said he suspected that a worker inadvertently spread the virus, possibly on their boots or clothing. To stress vigilance against transmission, the company requires people entering its corporate offices in Arizona to walk through a dry
chlorine foot bed to disinfect their shoes, he said.

The previous large-scale outbreak in the U.S. lasted from December 2014 to June 2015 and killed more than 50 million chickens and turkeys. Government officials attributed the high toll to the virus spreading from farm to farm.

In the current outbreak, wild birds carrying the virus are responsible for 84% of cases, said Dr. Rosemary Sifford, the USDA’s chief veterinary officer.

Puddle ducks, which include mallards and pintails, carried the virus to wild-bird breeding grounds, helping spread the bird flu around the country, said John Clifford, a former U.S. chief veterinary officer who oversaw the USDA response to the 2015
outbreak.

“It’s everywhere,” Dr. Clifford said.

In its latest securities filing, Cal-Maine, the largest U.S. egg producer, said in December that it hasn’t had a single bird-flu case and that it was working to mitigate the risk of outbreaks. The company didn’t reveal how it has kept its flocks safe
and declined to comment.

Merck & Co. and other drugmakers have avian flu vaccines, but they might not be worth the cost and effort to use, said egg-company executives and industry experts. Farmworkers would have to give shots, and likely more than one, to millions of hens that
generally produce eggs for no more than a year.

Vaccine use could also disrupt trade. Other countries would have to approve products made from vaccinated poultry, according to the USDA. The U.S. is the world’s second-largest exporter of poultry meat.

“It’s kind of easy to say, ‘Well, we’ll vaccinate, and it’ll solve the problem,’ ” Mr. Dean said. “But the truth is, it’s far, far more complicated.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/bird-flu-outbreak-chicken-shortage-egg-prices-eb8cced2

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On Saturday, March 4, 2023 at 3:23:41 PM UTC+8, David P. wrote:

America Is Losing the ‘Epic Battle’ Against Bird Flu
By Patrick Thomas, Feb. 23, 2023, NY Times

Mr. Hickman of Hickman’s Egg Ranch said his largest facility houses about 4 million cage-free chickens, which are too many chickens in one locale. “We would never do that again,” he said.

New facilities will be smaller, housing about one million birds each, he said, and spaced farther apart because of the threat of continued outbreaks.

In December, workers at one of Hickman’s farms in Colorado found dead birds in one of the barns. After test results came back positive for avian influenza, all 300,000 birds at the farm were individually asphyxiated using carbon dioxide gas.

Mr. Hickman said he suspected that a worker inadvertently spread the virus, possibly on their boots or clothing. To stress vigilance against transmission, the company requires people entering its corporate offices in Arizona to walk through a dry

chlorine foot bed to disinfect their shoes, he said.

The previous large-scale outbreak in the U.S. lasted from December 2014 to June 2015 and killed more than 50 million chickens and turkeys. Government officials attributed the high toll to the virus spreading from farm to farm.

In the current outbreak, wild birds carrying the virus are responsible for 84% of cases, said Dr. Rosemary Sifford, the USDA’s chief veterinary officer.

Puddle ducks, which include mallards and pintails, carried the virus to wild-bird breeding grounds, helping spread the bird flu around the country, said John Clifford, a former U.S. chief veterinary officer who oversaw the USDA response to the 2015

outbreak.

“It’s everywhere,” Dr. Clifford said.

In its latest securities filing, Cal-Maine, the largest U.S. egg producer, said in December that it hasn’t had a single bird-flu case and that it was working to mitigate the risk of outbreaks. The company didn’t reveal how it has kept its flocks

safe and declined to comment.

Merck & Co. and other drugmakers have avian flu vaccines, but they might not be worth the cost and effort to use, said egg-company executives and industry experts. Farmworkers would have to give shots, and likely more than one, to millions of hens that

generally produce eggs for no more than a year.

Vaccine use could also disrupt trade. Other countries would have to approve products made from vaccinated poultry, according to the USDA. The U.S. is the world’s second-largest exporter of poultry meat.

“It’s kind of easy to say, ‘Well, we’ll vaccinate, and it’ll solve the problem,’ ” Mr. Dean said. “But the truth is, it’s far, far more complicated.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/bird-flu-outbreak-chicken-shortage-egg-prices-eb8cced2

For sure, drug companies will hope more bird flu types will infect more people. If more people died from different types of flues, drug companies will make more types of flu jabs to meet the needs, and more money will be made for them, too.

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