Indiana set to lift most bird flu-related restrictions

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – Animal health officials are set to lift most of the restrictions imposed in January to contain a bird flu outbreak in southwestern Indiana.

If no new cases of the H7N8 strain are found, the State Board of Animal Health will end testing and surveillance early Monday at poultry farms within a 12.4-mile radius around a turkey farm where the virus was first found.

The last cases were found Jan. 16 in Dubois County, Indiana’s top turkey-producing county.

Lifting the restrictions will mean that affected poultry farms and backyard flocks will 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.