Bird flu outbreak in US kills 57 million birds, drives up egg prices and smuggling.
The bird flu outbreak in the US is the longest and deadliest on record, with 57 million birds killed by the virus or culled since January 2022. This has caused a spike in egg prices and egg smuggling, with a 137 percent increase in the price of a carton of a dozen eggs. Additionally, there has been a rise in the interception of smuggled eggs at the US-Mexico border due to the steep pricing. The virus is highly contagious to birds and often fatal, though the risk to humans is low. There is a fear that the virus could mutate and recombine into a human-infecting virus with pandemic potential. In October 2020, an outbreak of avian flu among farmed mink on the northwestern coast of Spain highlighted the potential for mammal-to-mammal transmission of an avian virus. As a precaution, workers on the mink farm took various safety measures, including using face masks and disposable overalls.
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