The latest information released by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) reveals that more than 46 million head of commercial poultry have been lost in the United States to the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) outbreak.
New case confirmed in Pennsylvania
The latest case announced involved a flock of 15,500 commercial turkeys in Adams County, Pennsylvania, which was confirmed on October 17. Prior to this case, the only confirmed case in the county in 2022 was confirmed on October 10, and involved what APHIS referred to as a flock of backyard poultry, although that flock was much larger than most backyard flocks, with 1,800 birds.
This is Pennsylvania’s 19th commercial poultry flock to be hit by HPAI in 2022. All other cases, however, were either in Berks County or Lancaster County. The state has now lost around 4.27 million birds to HPAI.
More information on latest Utah case
APHIS earlier announced that another commercial turkey flock in Sanpete County, Utah, had been infected with HPAI, with that case being confirmed on October 13. However, at the time, the agency had not disclosed the size of the flock.
APHIS has since updated the information on its website, revealing that there were 103,900 birds affected in that case. Sanpete County has now had 15 cases of HPAI in 2022, with 585,800 turkeys affected.
With the information on the latest cases of HPAI in Pennsylvania and Utah, the total number of birds lost to the 2022 HPAI outbreak in the United States has been estimated at 46,097,752. That figure does not include backyard poultry or wild birds.
To learn more about HPAI cases in commercial poultry flocks in the United States and Canada, see an interactive map on WATTPoultry.com.
Read our ongoing coverage of the global avian influenza outbreak.
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