This 12 months, the avian flu outbreak has killed around 50 million birds in america, setting a record for the deadliest flare-up within the country’s history. 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported on Thanksgiving Thursday that the flu outbreak has worn out 50.54 million birds, making it the worst animal-health disaster within the country to this point, as per KSL.com.

The outbreak affected chickens, turkeys, geese and other birds, as shown within the USDA’s records. This beat the previous record of fifty.5 million birds dying within the 2015 flare-up. 

Based on authorities, the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) is accountable for this 12 months’s record-breaking animal disaster that impacted poultry farms, backyard flocks and facilities like petting zoos. 

Meanwhile, the USDA noted in a separate report that at the very least 3,700 wild birds were killed by the outbreak. 

“Wild birds could be infected with HPAI and show no signs of illness. They will carry the disease to recent areas when migrating, potentially exposing domestic poultry to the virus,” the department stated on its website. 

Health and wildlife officials imagine the migration of infected wild birds significantly contributed to the huge spread of the virus, in order that they are urging domestic bird owners to forestall their animals from making contact with their wild counterparts.

“Wild birds proceed to spread HPAI throughout the country as they migrate, so stopping contact between domestic flocks and wild birds is critical to protecting U.S. poultry,” USDA’s chief veterinary officer Rosemary Sifford said.

In lots of cases, the birds die from the flu. But in other cases, the farmers needed to kill their entire flocks to forestall the spread of the HPAI after some tested positive for the virus. 

Nonetheless, farmers had been called out by various animal welfare advocates for using a culling method that involved pumping in heat to a barn after sealing off its airways to kill all animals, in accordance with HuffPost. 

Consequently of the mass deaths of birds, prices for eggs and turkey meat soared to record highs, causing consumers to suffer amid the Thanksgiving celebrations. 

The virus has been ravaging North America and Europe since 2021. Some British supermarkets needed to ration customers’ egg purchases after supplies got disrupted by the pandemic, Reuters reported.