With high pathogenic avian influenza outbreaks occurring regularly for more than three years in the upper Midwest, those involved in the day-to-day fight understand this is a long-term battle with no easy out.
It's tiring to deal with as it jumps from avian to mammals and back again — each time kicking concerns up a notch. Across the country, the virus has affected 168 million birds since February 2022.
“Influenza viruses are just frustrating,” South Dakota State Veterinarian Beth Thompson said. “To be honest. It doesn't matter if we're talking about swine influenza, other influenza, they're a smart virus, and they'll figure things out.”
What influenza figured out, or what is more visible through increased testing, is the jump to dairy herds, which was first reported in South Dakota in April 2024 and was last reported in one herd in Minnesota in March of this year. In the last year, the virus has spread from dairy cows to humans in more than half (41) of the 70 reported cases. The virus has so far shown minor symptoms in humans including pink eye.
The virus has also stayed active throughout the year, largely absent of the large populations of migratory flocks. Cases persisted in South Dakota and Minnesota well into January this year. And as flocks have now made a return to the northern Plains, South Dakota had their first reported spring case of avian flu in a commercial turkey flock on April 8, affecting about 33,400 birds.
On the plus side, cases were hitting South Dakota harder last spring than this spring. Minnesota Department of Agriculture Commissioner Thom Petersen noted in a Legislative hearing recently that with the disease hanging around so long, they have to celebrate any reprieve they can get. Minnesota's last reported detection in a commercial flock was Feb. 12, 2025.
While that’s promising, efforts continue to address the severity of the virus. A new federal administration and new leaders of federal organizations have brought change, but maintained a focus on biosecurity.
For example, on April 10, USDA announced $15.3 million in funding was being released to projects that enhance prevention, preparedness, early detection, and rapid response to the most damaging diseases that threaten U.S. livestock.
“These projects will provide producers, veterinarians, and states with tools to better control, treat, and recover from foreign animal disease outbreaks,” said Michael Watson, APHIS Administrator, in a news release.
The projects go beyond avian influenza specifically to control animal diseases in general. However, an award of $357,281 to the University of Minnesota is meant to study barn-to-barn spread of a type of avian flu, Influenza A virus.
Funding more specific to avian influenza control includes an announcement in February of $1 billion from USDA meant to protect the U.S. poultry industry. Of that amount, half is going towards biosecurity measures, including expanded Wildlife Biosecurity Assessments and biosecurity audits. The USDA will also share up to 75% of the costs to address biosecurity concerns.
That announcement shared that among the 150 facilities that follow the safety measures prescribed through the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, only one has had an outbreak of avian influenza.
Within U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins’ approach to controlling the spread is a focus on stopping wildlife from entering the farm and introducing the virus. Farmers who do not have an active infection on their farm are able to receive free assessments of their property to identify problem areas, according to APHIS staff.
“Biosecurity is the most important thing people can do to protect their flocks against the disease,” Jeanine Cogan, a consultant with APHIS said during a webinar about the assessments.
To bolster that biosecurity, USDA is offering two opportunities: A wildlife assessment and a general assessment. Producers can request one or both of the assessments that take a closer look at everything entering and exiting a farm. As of April 17, 567 poultry biosecurity assessments were completed since Jan. 1, 2025. That includes 17 in Minnesota; 12 in South Dakota; two in North Dakota; and 78 in Iowa. Producers can email [email protected] or call 844-820-2234 to request the assessments.
Vaccine role
The February funding announcement sets aside $100 million towards innovations in vaccines, therapeutics and other strategies to reduce instances of depopulation.
Minnesota Board of Animal Health Assistant Director Shauna Voss said the board supports advocating for the development of vaccines that would be approved by the USDA and supports the proper use of those vaccines. But vaccines are tricky when it comes to international trade.
“It does have some significant trade implications, and so until those agreements are updated and our trading partners are supportive of what we're doing, it has been off the table,” Voss said.
Those implications arise because of trade agreements with some countries who do not want avian influenza entering their country. Vaccinated birds may not show signs of HPAI infection, which could lead to the export of infected live animals or virus-contaminated products to areas that have not reported the virus.
Regardless of how helpful vaccines may be in the fight, Thompson said they are not silver bullets. The fact that the virus remains entrenched in the wild bird population and that this virus can change maintains the hard truth that this appears to be a long-term concern on the industry and consumers.
Other ideas
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reportedly told Fox News in March that the virus devastation could be curbed by not depopulating flocks where an infection is detected, rather allowing the virus to run its course and identifying birds with a “genetic inclination for immunity.” He also shared his opposition to the use of vaccines on poultry, warning that it can turn "birds into mutant factories."
The notion brought an investigation from House Democrats, who want to know more about how Kennedy is responding to the threat.
"Allowing avian flu to ravage flocks across the country is dangerous and reckless, and is an approach unsupported by scientists, public health officials, and veterinarians," a group of five House Democrats wrote in a letter to Kennedy.
While scientists are always looking for better ways to deal with diseases, animal health experts in Minnesota and South Dakota agree that the method Kennedy is describing leads to a cruel death for those poultry flocks.
Despite significant staffing cuts at USDA, so far staff have continued to utilize standard procedures such as a “stamping out” approach, or depopulation in events of infection.
“The USDA will continue to evaluate with states, producers, and industry the potential use of HPAI vaccine. However, stamping-out of HPAI-infected poultry will always be part of any HPAI response policy, even if a protective vaccination strategy is implemented,” according to USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service policy.
Depopulation aligns with their goal “to detect, control and contain avian influenza in poultry as quickly as possible.” Depopulation is considered more humane than allowing birds to succumb to the virus, according to Voss.
“It’s important to remember that this virus is nearly 100% fatal within domestic poultry. And so while allowing it to kind of do the burnout approach might sound like a good theory, it's actually fairly inhumane to the animals who have to go through that and succumb to the virus,” Voss said. “And so depopulation is one of the chosen methods.”
Allowing the virus to spread means more birds going through what “appears to be a pretty painful death,” Voss said.
“You know, the gasping for air. It is a systemic infection, and so it affects all the organs. And once we start to see the death and mortality rates kick up on a flock, it goes pretty quick through a flock. But letting those birds suffer through that is not really the most humane thing that we could be doing.”
Voss adds that depopulation is also a chosen method for its ability to stop the virus from hanging around long enough to mutate. So rather than vaccines causing the mutation, Voss said it's allowing a virus to run through a flock that can cause the mutations.
“By the time we allow a virus to circulate in a flock, it creates a mixing bowl of that virus,” Voss continued. “That virus continues to replicate, and it will mutate, and potentially yields a virus that's a little bit more difficult to contain. The more viruses out there and circulating through a flock, we also increase the risk of spread between farms.”
A topic that is being discussed — and one Minnesota animal health professionals may be open to — is limiting depopulation to the infected flock in one barn, while surrounding barns on the premises may be monitored rather than culled out of precaution.
“So I think there's some room for discussion in there about how we did this," Voss said.
Thompson agrees and is hopeful Kennedy has been spending time talking to those in the industry who have personally seen the disease at work in a poultry barn.
Another factor at work in 2025, is the fact that as more federal staff are let go, there are fewer to support state staff. Analyzing the abundance of data is one area Thompson feels needs attention.
“So for example, I'm hearing from a couple of states that have had a lot more both in the dairy and poultry detections, that they have a lot of good (epidemiological) information, but at this point in time, they're having struggles finding either folks from other agencies, you know, like the federal government, coming in and helping out with analyzing some of that data,” Thompson said. It’s an issue felt across the country at this time, she added.
Thompson is confident that her agency will have the funding and cooperative agreements needed to handle the expected cases in 2025. It’s the frustrating potential of this virus to jump to other species and present the unexpected that brings about more concern and more attention from each additional industry that's hit.