The number of Minnesota farms hit by bird flu outbreaks has taken a big jump — 13 new farms with more than 430,000 turkeys — as efforts to develop both avian and human vaccines to combat the illness get underway.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said in an update Wednesday evening that the farms with newly confirmed H5N2 infections are all in counties where other farms had been affected earlier. They include the 15th detection in Kandiyohi County and the ninth detection in Stearns County, the two top turkey-producing counties in Minnesota, which is the country's top turkey producing state.
The outbreaks have cost 44 Minnesota farms nearly 2.6 million turkeys. Those not killed by the disease outright have been euthanized to prevent its spread or will be culled soon. Across the Midwest, the toll is more than 7.1 million turkeys and egg-laying chickens.
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