State officials in Wisconsin have confirmed another case of H5 avian influenza discovered at a local farm in Barron County, making it the eighth case reported since the outbreak began last month.

The Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection announced Sunday that they detected the infection at a local farm in the county. Among its stock of commercial turkey, about 16,000 breeding turkeys and almost 42,000 hatching eggs had to be removed and destroyed in order to stem the outbreak of the disease.

The farm and its surroundings were quarantined by state veterinary officials. The remaining poultry stock will be euthanized and will be prohibited from reaching markets.

A ban has also been issued on the movement of poultry in affected counties in the state all throughout the month. These include the counties of Jefferson, Chippewa, Juneau and Barron.

The first case of bird flu in Wisconsin was discovered on April 13 at a local commercial chicken farm in Jefferson County. As of the moment, there are already 1.5 million birds in the state affected by the outbreak.

Similar cases of avian flu infections have been reported in other states, mostly from the Midwest region.

Despite affecting the stock of poultry, the latest strain of bird flu detected is not known to have caused illness in people. Health experts believe that it will not pose a threat to the public or to the country's food supply.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), bird flu is caused by microorganisms called influenza A viruses.

While these viruses typically infect the intestines of wild birds, they do not show symptoms. They are, however, known to be highly contagious to several species of domesticated birds causing severe illness and death to ducks, turkeys and chickens.

Avian flu is transmitted through the nasal secretions, saliva and feces of infected birds. Influenza A viruses can remain active even when on surfaces, such as cages and dirt grounds, and on other poultry materials, such as bird feed and drinking water.

Infections are categorized according to two main forms of the disease: low pathogenic and high pathogenic. These are used to gauge the potency of the infection to kill the infected bird and not how contagious it is to humans.

Most strains of the bird flu virus are not highly pathogenic and do not manifest many symptoms in infected birds. Low pathogenic infections, however, can mutate quickly and escalate to a highly pathogenic version that could easily cause sickness among poultry stocks and even death.

Photo: Larissa Sayer | Flickr