Bird flu kills poultry by the million in US

WASHINGTON: A bird flu virus that is sweeping across the US is becoming the country’s worst outbreak, having already killed more than 37million chickens and turkeys. More deaths are expected through next month as farmers perform mass culls across the Midwest.

The last time bird flu hit the US in 2015, 50 million birds had died by the end of the season and cost the federal government more than $1 billion.

At the time, the industry beefed up its biosecurity around poultry houses, installing sound cannons to repel wild birds, or even carwashes so that farm trucks wouldn’t bring contamination from one farm to another, so that there wouldn’t be a repeat. |