Indiana lifts most bird flu-related restrictions

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – Animal health officials have lifted most of the restrictions imposed in January on southwestern Indiana poultry producers to contain a bird flu outbreak.

The State Board of Animal Health ended testing and surveillance requirements early Monday at poultry farms within a 12.4-mile radius around a turkey farm where the H7N8 viral strain was first found.

Those requirements were lifted after no additional cases of the virus had been found since Jan. 16 in Dubois County, Indiana’s top turkey-producing county.

Lifting those restrictions means affected poultry farms and backyard flocks no longer face limits on the movement of poultry and poultry products.

But quarantines will continue at 10 commercial poultry farms until they meet cleanup requirements after they euthanized more than 414,000 turkeys and chickens to contain the outbreak.