Federal animal health officials posted a batch of new H5N1 bird flu detections this week after their public trackers went nearly 30 days without an update, according to the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. The detections themselves are modest. The silence that preceded them is the part worth attention.
Three dairy herds were confirmed infected in the past 30 days, two in Texas and one in Utah. Commercial poultry losses were larger. A breeding operation in Edmunds County, South Dakota, reported an outbreak affecting 29,700 birds, and a second outbreak in Brule County, South Dakota, involved 2,800 birds. Two smaller detections were confirmed in Ada and Canyon counties in Idaho, the two most populous counties in the Boise area.
