Q&A: 'All hands on deck’ response to bird flu spike in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania agriculture officials are trying to stem a spike in bird flu cases among Pennsylvania poultry flocks.

The state this week announced an effort with experts from Penn State Extension, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and other agencies to expand testing and mitigate the spread of avian flu.

Pennsylvania has lost around 14 million birds to the virus since 2022. Half of those, more than 7 million, have died in recent weeks.

Julie Grant, from our partners at The Allegheny Front, asked Pennsylvania Agriculture Secretary Russell Redding about the scope of the problem.

The interview

Russell Redding: It’s unprecedented, the type of devastation that we’re witnessing right now. The number of flocks, the number of birds, the frequency, the pace at which they’re coming several overnights, it just keeps growing. And we’re trying to keep our arms around this, but obviously, until we have the epidemiology reports that sort of confirm or direct us how this virus is spreading, right now, you just run from wreck to wreck trying to keep ahead of this.

Julie Grant: Your office reports that a dozen states have seen avian flu outbreaks already this year, but that Pennsylvania has the highest number. Do you know why this is happening? Where did this outbreak start?

Russell Redding: I think at this point, we’re probably 50% of the positives in the country. There are 12 states. The state of Indiana, I would say, is probably close to us.

At this point, it’s a lot of speculation because we’ve got an early migration of geese that’s occurring. We had the very extreme sub-zero temperatures that froze over some of the water bodies that maybe these geese would have wintered over, and now they’re moving more. That’s speculation on our part, but it clearly came in from some wild geese. Just a question now, is it lateral transmission? Is it wind and weather related? That’s not going to be determined until we have the [epidemiology] report.

Julie Grant: You mentioned epidemiology reports. Can you tell us more about that?

Russell Redding: They do a lot of things. They will take, obviously, the individual farm testing results. So they’ll look at every [Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza] case. They’ll compare farm to farm to see whether it’s the exact match or is there a variant in there that tells us what and how that virus may have moved to that particular farm.

It will overlay the weather patterns over the last couple of weeks. They’ll overlay bird migration that they track through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. They’ll do dead birds, if they find them, to analyze those birds to see if there’s a match to any of the farms. So it’s really the forensic work, if you will, of trying to determine the exact strain of the virus and potentially the lineage of that virus from farm to farm.

Julie Grant: What is the state doing to respond?

Russell Redding: There’s an aggressive response. As of today, we’ve got 105 staff who are working on this. We’re lucky, very fortunate, to have the support of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. They have these special teams that they deploy to the hotspots. Our team came in yesterday [Wednesday] from the USDA.

We’ve got about 42 staff that are here, either in the incident management team, and they’re here now as sort of co-commanders with our state veterinarian. The rest of those staff are either virtual or in the field helping us. We’ve got several members of the civil support team from the National Guard who are working with us.

Our Penn State University staff and extension teams are working. Some members from other agencies, and we’re sort of extending all over the department for the skills and competencies that can help us respond. And it’s a range of things that you need, right? There are site and case manager types who are working in the field. They are folks who are just good equipment technicians who can move stuff and do all logistics. Yeah, it’s an all hands on deck [response].

Julie Grant: So are certain types of farms more at risk? Smaller farms or the larger, more industrial ones? What are you seeing? 

Russell Redding: So it’s really interesting, we started the season with what we call the live bird market flocks, and you know, they aren’t huge flocks. I mean, these are maybe a couple thousand birds in some cases, a couple of hundred birds, but they go into the live bird market, you know, and that has been a persistent problem for us over the last year. And we put in some new requirements and structures to try to manage that.

I think it’s important to know what the live bird markets are. They are the live bird markets you find in New York City and Boston and Atlanta and up and down the Eastern seaboard to really support the ethnic market. We are a major sort of player in production of live birds for that market and a reservoir because a lot of other states will move birds to Pennsylvania for that purpose. You can see in that dynamic alone, a lot of co-mingling, right? So you end up with birds coming together. That was the original source of the problem.

Then we began to see, about two weeks ago, very large operations, operations in excess of a million birds become positive. But if you look at the 54 flocks that are positive as of today (nationwide), they’re on the low side of a couple thousand to the upper side of the million. So no pattern per se. That’s again, part of the issue here of the [epidemiology] report.

Julie Grant: What are the economic implications?

Russell Redding: You know, agriculture in and of itself is a leading industry. You’re going to lose eggs. You’re going to lose production as a result of [bird flu] positives, right? Cause all of this product is obviously not going to market, it has to be diverted and destroyed.

So there are economic implications at the farm level, economic at the state level, and if it persists and you don’t get full command of this across the country, you find ourselves back where we were two years ago with egg prices being impacted. So that’s the long-play worry. These are the things that have direct market implications.

Julie Grant: Well, we already hear that it’s pretty hard to be a farmer these days, and this sounds like one more big challenge. So what’s the state doing to assist farmers who might lose a flock?

Russell Redding: Yeah, I worry a lot about the human side of this. I mean, we certainly are focused on the response, the system responses. I mean the birds, of course, it’s always a sad day when you have to take the actions that we take. But on top of that, you understand that there are livelihoods and farms and families.

And that’s why we’re particularly pleased to have this [Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Recovery Reimbursement] fund that was established a couple of years ago, and both the governor and the legislature in a bipartisan way have supported it. It’s the only recovery fund in the nation.

We were on a call last night, the governor and I, with Secretary [Brooke] Rollins of the USDA, and she is equally as amazed as we are that you have it and you can use it. And it takes this sort of issue off the table temporarily for these farms, of like, how do I keep my employees? How do I meet the bank payments? How do I pay the utility bills?

These are things that are fixed costs, whether you have a production coming out of that flock facility or not. We have that, and that’s been incredibly, incredibly important. It also supports our biosecurity efforts that allow for truck washes to be set up, crate washes, you know, all of the biosecurity protocols. So we’re very fortunate. So at least we can take some of the worry out in the near term.

Read more from our partners at The Allegheny Front, including full audio from the interview.