Mild bird-flu strain found in Missouri

Federal officials discovered a low-grade strain of bird flu at a Missouri turkey farm during a routine inspection late last week that led to the destruction of the birds there as a precaution.

The turkey farm in Jasper County, in the southwestern part of the state, is a little more than an hour's drive north of the Arkansas border. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said no commercial flocks tested positive within a 6-mile testing radius of the Jasper farm.

Bird flu led to the destruction of 48 million birds last year in the United States. During that outbreak, only one case of bird flu was detected in Arkansas -- at a turkey farm in Boone County.

The virus found on the Missouri farm is not the same as the one that hit poultry farms last year. It is less infectious.

-- Claire Williams

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