Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) was confirmed in a commercial broiler flock in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
According to information from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), the case was confirmed on February 21 and involved 97,700 chickens.
This is the second case of HPAI to be confirmed in commercial poultry flock in Pennsylvania in 2023. The other case, also in Lancaster County, involved a flock of 32,800 commercial meat ducks. That case was confirmed on February 1. Another Lancaster County flock affected by HPAI on February 8 was originally classified by APHIS a layer pullet flock, involving 20,300 birds. However, APHIS has since updated its website and now only classifies that case as WOAH (World Organisation for Animal Health) poultry and does not classify it as a commercial flock.
In 2022, Pennsylvania lost 25 commercial poultry flocks to HPAI, more than all other states except for Minnesota and South Dakota. In terms of bird losses, approximately 4.35 head of commercial poultry died as a result of the HPAI outbreak. Only Iowa, Nebraska and Colorado lost more birds that year.
Eight of those flocks affected by HPAI in 2022 were in Lancaster County, involving commercial table egg layers, commercial meat ducks, commercial broilers and commercial broiler breeder pullets. Two of those layer flocks involved more than one million chickens.
In addition to Pennsylvania, other states to have confirmed cases of HPAI in commercial operations in 2023 include Mississippi, California, Iowa, Virginia, Tennessee and Kansas.
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.
