Virulent Strain of Bird Flu hits a Farm in Iowa

On Monday, the US Department of Agriculture has confirmed a highly infectious and deadly bird flu virus in a farm in Iowa. Now, up to 5.3 million hens at the farm in northwest Iowa's Osceola County have to be destroyed.

The news is significant as the farm has around 10% of the state's egg-laying hens. Iowa is said to be home to around 59 million hens that lay nearly one in every five eggs consumed in the country. For now, the impact on egg prices cannot be known, but there are less chances that any spike or shortage will come.

Number of chickens that will be culled is a little more than 1% of the nation's egg layers. Simon Shane from North Carolina State University said that if 20 million to 30 million hens are infected then consumers can see a rise in price.

Since March, many Midwestern states have been infected by the outbreaks. The outbreak had cost around turkey and chicken producers around 7.8 million birds. For the first time, the virus was detected in Minnesota, which is the nation's top turkey-producing state, in early March.

After that, the virus has been seen in commercial farms in Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin. On Monday, the virus has been confirmed in another turkey farm in Minnesota and a backyard flock of mixed birds in Wisconsin.

The farm provides shell eggs and liquid egg products to the market. "It may not have a direct effect on shell egg pricing but any time you take production out of a marketplace there's likely to be some consequence", said Iowa Poultry Association Executive Director Randy Olson. Olson said that they have been reminding people that it is not a food safety issue.