Over the weekend, federal and state agriculture officials announced Colorado's first avian flu outbreak, continuing the westward expansion of detections in poultry and lifting the number of affected state to 26.

Meanwhile, earlier-affected states reported more outbreaks, notably Minnesota, where turkey producers have now lost more than 1.3 million birds.

Colorado backyard flock hit

The outbreak in Colorado struck a backyard flock in Pitkin County in the west central part of the state near Aspen. The Colorado Department of Agriculture said a veterinarian from the area reported that 35 of 36 birds in the flock died after having known exposure to sick waterfowl.

One of the birds was sent for testing to the Colorado State University Veterinary Diagnostic Lab, and the positive findings were confirmed at the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Veterinary Services Laboratory in Ames, Iowa.

In late March, the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) reported the first detection in a wild bird from Colorado, and since then, surveillance has turned up the virus 15 times in waterfowl, mainly geese, from four of the state's countries.

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