Highly contagious bird flu found at Wilton poultry farm, California officials confirm
Workers in white Haz-Mat style suits and wearing face masks worked for the past three days at a Wilton poultry farm due to an outbreak of highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu, KCRA 3 has learned. The farm is owned by Perdue Foods out of Maryland according to Sacramento County tax records.
The California Department of Food and Agriculture in an email said that workers had worked yesterday with the U.S. Department of Agriculture at the farm to mitigate the spread of the virus. Neighbors tell KCRA 3 that the workers from both had been in and out of the farm for several days.
Footage shot by KCRA 3 shows signs saying that due to biosensitivity workers should walk through a clean water bath on the way in.
CDFA said that the birds on the property were euthanized, "a practice that is carried out rapidly to humanely alleviate suffering and help prevent the spread of the virus locally, regionally and nationally."
According to CDFA, this is the fourth incident of bird flu in the Sacramento County region this year.
Sacramento County Public Health Officer Dr. Olivia Kasirye told KCRA 3 this week she was monitoring bird flu and to date, there have not been any human cases in the county.
"We do know that it is a concern because in California we have seen cow herds that have been infected. We have seen a lot of bird flocks that have been infected as well," she said.
KCRA 3 is working to get more details and will continue to follow this story.
Correction: December 12: this story has been updated to reflect the impacted farm was a chicken farm, not a turkey farm in Wilton.
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