By Mary Hightower
Understanding the timing of outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza, or HPAI, can help poultry farms prepare and protect their flocks, according to economists.
Between February 2022 and April 2026, HPAI has affected 212 million birds, with more than 1,000 commercial flocks affected, according to the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Jada Thompson, associate professor of agricultural economics for the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture who specializes in poultry, has done extensive research on the effects of HPAI.
“When the United States poultry industry encountered the H5N2 strain of HPAI in 2014, it was mostly spread house-to-house through contaminated materials, trucks and laborers,” she said.
“This prompted sweeping changes in biosecurity culture that still exist today,” Thompson said. “These changes, along with a hot summer, helped to end the outbreak by June 2015.
“However, since the 2022 introduction of a host-adapted H5N1 virus, poultry growers in the Mississippi Flyway have faced increased disease risk, despite the wide adoption of these enhanced biosecurity measures,” she said. “This most recent outbreak has spread instead by external introduction, rather than house-to-house as in 2014.”
“‘Host-adapted’ refers to the virus’s ability to persist in wild bird populations. Where previous HPAI events ravaged both poultry and wild birds, the current H5N1 2.3.4.4b classification is less likely to kill some wild bird species,” Thompson said. “This means that waterfowl can become infected and still survive migration, spreading the disease across the flyway.”
Source : uada.edu