The Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship is responding to five probable cases of highly pathogenic Avian Influenza in commercial poultry farms in Osceola, O’Brien and Sioux Counties in Northwest Iowa. They join three previous cases of H5N2 that were confirmed. Iowa Agriculture Secretary Bill Northey says the total number of layer birds affected by the disease in Iowa is over 9 million.
Northey says his department is working closely with USDA on depopulating the affected farms.
USDA’s Deputy Director for Science and Technology Dr. T.J. Myers who’s the assistant to Chief Veterinarian Dr. John Clifford is working with Iowa officials now and has been working on these outbreaks in other states where they’ve occurred. He says they’ve been able to pay out $60 million dollars in indemnity payments to producers hit by the disease.
Northey says in addition to the 9.5 million layers, 80,000 turkeys have been confirmed with Avian Influenza in Iowa.
