Disease

Bird Flu Spreads in South Dakota, USA

Five commercial turkey farms in South Dakota have now been infected with a bird flu strain that's led to the deaths of more than 250,000 turkeys in the state and over 2.4 million birds in the Midwest.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service announced Friday that the H5N2 strain of avian influenza in a flock of 66,000 birds in a Roberts County farm in the far northeastern corner of the state, marking South Dakota's largest outbreak to date.

The approximately 6-mile quarantine zone that officials set up around the impacted farm also stretches into parts of North Dakota and Minnesota. Dr. Dustin Oedekoven, the South Dakota state veterinarian, said Thursday that crews were beginning to euthanize the farm's surviving birds to prevent the disease from spreading.