For the first time since an outbreak in 2022, bird flu has hit commercial poultry flocks in Georgia, America’s top chicken-producing state. A case of highly pathogenic avian influenza has been detected in Elbert County, according to the state Department of Agriculture.

The virus has been found four times in Georgia, but only in backyard flocks, which included 13 chickens and ducks in Clayton County, south of Atlanta, earlier this month. “This is a serious threat to Georgia’s #1 industry and the livelihoods of thousands of Georgians who make their living in our state’s poultry industry,” Georgia Agriculture Commissioner Tyler Harper said in a news release.

All poultry operations closed in Georgia

All poultry exhibitions, shows, swaps, meetings and sales have now been suspended.

According to the release, the first clinical signs of bird flu were observed last week at a site housing about 45,000 broiler breeders. The Georgia Department of Agriculture’s Emergency Management also dispatched its State Agriculture Response Teams to “conduct population removal, cleaning and disinfecting, and disposal operations.”

All commercial poultry operations within a 6.2-mile (10-kilometre) radius were placed under quarantine and must undergo at least two weeks of surveillance testing.

Officials say testing procedures are already in place to ensure that all chicken products sold for consumption are safe to eat. “This approach to protecting poultry products produced in Georgia will continue during and after this response,” Georgia Poultry Federation President Mike Giles said in a statement.

Bird flu spreads across America

Bird flu is spreading, killing millions of wild and domestic birds, including other animals, around the world in the past two years.

Nationwide, the virus has been found in 84 commercial and backyard flocks in the past month, with 10.7 million birds at those sites, according to the latest online data released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. This has also been confirmed in dozens of dairy farms. While human cases are rare and found mostly among farm workers, one person has died from bird flu – a Louisiana man over the age of 65 who was hospitalized with severe respiratory symptoms. .

Moderna gave $590 million to make bird flu vaccine

The government has awarded $590 million to Moderna to advance the development of a bird flu vaccine. According to Reuters, this is in addition to the $176 million awarded by the US Department of Health and Human Services last year to complete late-stage development and testing of a pre-pandemic mRNA-based vaccine against H5N1 avian influenza.

The award will also support the expansion of clinical studies to five additional subtypes of pandemic influenza. The drugmaker said it is preparing to advance its experimental shot, mRNA-1018, to late-stage trials based on preliminary data from an early to mid-stage study and plans to present the data at an upcoming medical meeting Is.

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