Since the beginning of the year, 22 commercial poultry farms and millions of birds have been depopulated across Indiana because of bird flu—or highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI).
But now, the Indiana State Board of Animal Health (BOAH) says the state has been cleared of the virus.
“The HPAI freedom milestone is certainly important for commerce here in Indiana for our poultry industry,” says Dr. Maria Cooper, Avian Health Division Director with the Indiana State Board of Animal Health.
“For many of our poultry companies and producers that export their product internationally—whether that’s egg or poultry products—a number of countries look to that HPAI freedom milestone to lessen their restrictions, whatever those restrictions may have been. It may have been a complete ban on being able to export those products to some countries,” she says.
The last commercial poultry farm in Indiana to have a positive test for HPAI was in Kosciusko County on March 28.
She tells Hoosier Ag Today that the risk for the return of the virus is still far from over.
“We get to declare this HPAI freedom, but that doesn’t mean that the virus still isn’t out there,” says Cooper. “It just means that we made it through these response steps and have not detected it in our domestic commercial flocks.”
She reminds poultry and dairy producers to be vigilant in their surveillance.
“We just encourage everyone to use the best biosecurity practices that they can and make sure that they’re reducing the interface between their poultry and wild poultry when they are interacting with their birds. Also that those working in our livestock and poultry industries are using clean clothes and clean shoes, and that they’ve washed their hands. It’s important to continue to do that and not just for avian influenza—when you’re doing biosecurity, you’re really doing it for the purpose of all infectious and contagious diseases.”
The virus has had a huge impact on the state’s poultry industry. In fact, Indiana ranks number 1 in the U.S. for duck production, third for egg production, third for turkey production, and the state is a significant producer of broilers.
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