New bird flu case puts Georgia ag officials on red alert

ATLANTA, Ga. - With an outbreak of bird flu reaching commercial flocks in the nation’s top poultry- producing state, what’s ahead for agriculture?

It’s the first time since the 2022 nationwide outbreak that the virus has hit a commercial producer in the state.

“This is a serious threat to Georgia’s No. 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.

The latest Georgia case was confirmed Friday in a commercial poultry operation in Elbert County, agriculture officials said. It’s the fifth case in Georgia and the first in a commercial flock.

The Georgia Department of Agriculture sent teams to the site to “conduct depopulation, cleaning and disinfecting, and disposal operations.”

All commercial poultry operations within a 6.2-mile radius were put under quarantine and will undergo at least two weeks of surveillance testing.

plus all in-state poultry exhibitions, shows, swaps, meets and sales are suspended until further notice, the Georgia Department of Agriculture said.

Georgia Poultry Federation president Mike Giles said in a statement Saturday that it is cooperating with state and federal officials and there are already testing processes in place to make sure all chicken products sold for consumption are safe to eat, local outlets reported. The federation represents producers in the state.

“That approach to protecting the safety of poultry products produced in Georgia will continue throughout this response and beyond” Giles said.

A spokesperson for the Georgia Department of Agriculture said it does not provide the name of an affected site when an animal disease breaks out to prevent any unauthorized access to the operation that could trigger a wider spread of the disease and to protect the farmer from harassment.

Bird flu has been spreading, killing millions of wild and domestic birds worldwide over the last two years, among other animals.

Nationwide, the virus has been detected in 84 commercial and backyard flocks in the last month, with 10.7 million birds on those sites, according to the latest online data released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It has also been confirmed in dozens of dairy farms.

While human cases are rare and are mostly found among farmworkers, one person has died from bird flu — a Louisiana man over the age of 65 who was hospitalized with severe respiratory symptoms.

Meanwhile, a bird flu case was found Dec. 31 in a flock of about 490 birds in Spartanburg.

So far it has not spread to any humans, but it is a concern.

“Normally with outbreaks like this it is usually gone in a season,” State Veterinarian Michael Neault said. “This is the longest animal disease outbreak that we have experienced. This is giving it more chance to mutate, which is why people are watching it much more closely.”

Neault says the recent bird flu has been circulating for a few years. The USDA reports more than 32 million birds have been infected by this virus in the last four months.

Clemson University’s director of poultry health programs, Julie Helm, says the bird flu is usually a low risk to humans, but experts are keeping a close eye on recent mutations.

“The biggest concern is if the avian influenza virus were to mix with a human virus and thus make it easier to not only infect humans but then make the jump of human to human spread,” Helm said. “Then, creating the next pandemic, so that has always been the greatest concern.”

Experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say the virus is not spreading from human to human, but rather only from animal to human.

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