Agriculture

Bird flu at Indiana turkey farm not same as 2015 strain

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Federal officials say a bird flu virus that is different from the one that ravaged turkey and chicken farms last summer has been found in Indiana.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Friday the H7N8 flu strain had been confirmed at a commercial turkey farm in the southwestern Indiana county of Dubois. The strain is highly contagious for birds, not humans.

Last year’s H5N2 virus outbreak began spreading widely in the spring, not winter, and led to the deaths of 48 million birds.

Indiana Board of Animal Health spokeswoman Denise Derrer says the farm has about 60,000 turkeys and the flock is being euthanized to prevent the disease from spreading.

She said a quarantine is in place for commercial poultry farms and backyard flocks within a nearly 6-mile radius.

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