Fall migration is underway. USDA is urging livestock and poultry producers to stay vigilant against Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza. New detections continue to surface in both poultry and dairy operations. Officials say monitoring, education, and biosecurity remain key tools in limiting the virus’s spread. USDA Undersecretary Dudley Hoskins says the seasonal movement of wild birds always raises concerns.
“And obviously we’re at the beginning of the fall migratory season. And this time of year, we always anticipate an uptick just as migratory birds are moving through the environment. They’re a natural vector to transmit and spread High-Path throughout the country and every single flyway in the United States.”
In addition to monitoring poultry cases, USDA continues to rely on a nationwide milk testing program to track the virus in dairy cattle. New dairy cattle infections have been confirmed in Washington, Kansas, and Texas over the last month. To help identify and contain those cases, Hoskins says the milk testing program has become an effective tool.
“What we have seen, and we have a national milk testing strategy in place that’s been very effective for us in terms of almost like an early warning system. So far, we have 46 different states that are participating in the national milk testing strategy, and about 39 of those are currently in an uninfected status. That system has really been a critical tool for us at USDA APHIS. It allows us to have visibility on the status of the dairy, the milk, but all the dairy products in that area.”
That testing system also helps reassure consumers about the safety of dairy products.
“Just a reminder, when we do find it through the national milk testing strategy, we are confident that we know it is not a human health risk. There’s no food safety risk here, so to speak. FDA has spoken to that. Any of the milk that’s pasteurized, there is zero risk in consumption. And when we do find affected animals, out of an abundance of caution, for no food safety reason, we keep those animals out of the production cycle.”
For the most part, dairy cattle recover from infection. Hoskins says poultry producers often face much steeper losses from HPAI. It requires infected flocks to be depopulated and facilities cleaned, disinfected, and audited before birds can be safely returned to production.
And while much of the attention has focused on poultry and dairy cattle, Hoskins says the virus can impact many different kinds of animals.
“The influenza, it can touch and impact a lot of different species. We’ve seen it in zoo animals. We’ve seen it obviously in wildlife. So yeah, our focus from the USDA APHIS side is to mitigate the impact to the U.S. agriculture and our producers. But the risk of transmission is much more prevalent than that. And that’s a place where we really ask our producer partners to help educate, not just the people that come onto their premises about biosecurity, but really people outside the farm gate and what they can do to minimize or reduce inadvertent spread or transmission of High-Path.”
USDA continues emphasizing strong day-to-day biosecurity practices on every operation, regardless of size, species, or location.
“We just all want to keep these kind of front of mind, which is controlling and mitigating transmission risk is paramount. That’s just fundamental. So think about clothing, think about your footwear, where you’ve been, washing your hands, what facility you may have been at that morning versus where you may be going that afternoon. Anything you can do just to maintain vigilance and awareness of those kind of fundamental principles is really what we’re asking people to do.”
For farmers looking to strengthen their defenses against HPAI, Hoskins says USDA offers a range of resources, including biosecurity assessments and cost-share programs to help address vulnerabilities on the farm. He encourages producers to visit USDA’s HPAI website, review the tools, and contact USDA if they’d like help evaluating their farm’s biosecurity.