On Friday, Iowa Governor Terry Branstad declared a state of emergency to deal with the fast-expanding bird flu outbreak in the United States. After the emergency, Iowa has become the third state in the country to declare emergency. According to reports, due to the outbreak, the national poultry death toll scaled towards record levels.

Iowa is the biggest egg-producing state in the United States. According to officials, they identified four new suspected cases of avian influenza. Now, the number of birds affected by the outbreak in the state is more than 16 million. Before Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota had declared emergency due to the outbreak.

The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that the virus strain is dangerous and is able to pose a low risk to human health. But, according to the federal agency, no human infections have been identified until now. As per the reports, the number of poultry that will be killed to prevent the spread of the virus could increase to about 21 million bases on the recent cases in Iowa.

In last two weeks, the virus has spread in egg industry of Iowa. The virus has affected about 25% of the egg-laying hens in the state. In about 10 counties of the state, more than 20 confirmed or identified cases of the disease have been found.

According to Iowa officials, they are hopeful that warmer weather will help in slowing the spread of the dangerous virus. Scientists said that the virus is less likely to survive in higher temperatures. Governor Branstad said on Friday, "We are taking the matter very seriously and believe declaring a state of emergency is the best way to make all resources available".