(Radio Iowa) – State and federal officials announced this weekend that bird flu had been confirmed in a commercial flock of 240-thousand layer hens in northwest Iowa’s O’Brien County. Governor Kim Reynolds has recommended an additional half a MILLION dollars in state spending to support development of vaccines for bird flu and other foreign animal diseases.

The current outbreak of avian influenza began three years ago and the first human case of bird flu in the United States was identified in April of last year. In December, state officials reported the first human case in Iowa, in a person who worked in a commercial poultry operation. In a recent Radio Iowa interview, Reynolds said figuring out how to best mitigate transmission of the virus is key. “Think about it going from birds to hogs,” Reynolds said.”I mean just this past year it went to dairy. It’s scary the impact it could have not only on the food supply chain, but just to people as well.”

Governor Reynolds says the National Veterinary Service Lab in Ames is playing a critical role in confirming cases quickly, so current mitigation strategies can begin. When bird flu is confirmed in poultry, the birds are euthanized. “It’s been devasting what it’s done to our producers here in the state,” Reynolds says. A decade ago, over 30 million birds in Iowa poultry operations were euthanized during the previous outbreak of bird flu. Since March of last year, the virus has been detected in 12 commercial flocks in Iowa.

“I don’t want to see another epidemic like we dealt with before,” Reynolds said. In 2024, state and federal officials confirmed cases of bird flu in 13 Iowa dairy herds. Dairy cattle with signs of bird flu are segregated from the rest of the herd and the majority of the cattle recover from the virus.