ST. PAUL, MINN. — The ongoing highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) outbreak has affected over 169 million birds within poultry operations since the current wave of the disease began in February 2022. As part of its HPAI surveillance and research efforts, the University of Minnesota (UMN) Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory (VDL) announced it has conducted more than 115,000 tests for the virus since July 2023.

“We are making sure we are the eyes and ears for the disease,” said Hemant K. Naikare, director of the VDL, veterinary microbiologist and professor at the UMN College of Veterinary Medicine. “We’re providing early disease detection in an accurate and timely manner, so when our results go out, response teams can act on them very quickly.”

The laboratory features a full-service all animal species facility in St. Paul, Minn., and a poultry testing facility in Willmar, Minn., that play an important role in diagnosing HPAI in animals. The facilities have contributed to recent efforts toward ongoing HPAI research and disease surveillance across production, companion and wild animals.

The VDL received a nearly $1.5 million grant in collaboration with researchers at the College of Veterinary Medicine to launch an HPAI surveillance initiative that will assess the emerging threat to Minnesota wildlife.

The laboratory is also collaborating with the Minnesota Board of Animal Health to conduct raw milk testing for HPAI, which has resulted in more than 2,000 milk samples being tested from the state’s 1,600 dairy farms and the confirmed detection of one positive result.

Other efforts include testing lactating cattle for HPAI before they are transported across Minnesota borders and partnering with UMN researchers and the University of California–Davis to study the virus’s impact on cattle, including how long the virus remains in the host and how long it takes a host to make antibodies.

This isn’t the first time the lab has been part of a major HPAI response effort. When the bird flu first appeared in the 2015 outbreak that resulted in the culling of more than 50 million chickens and turkeys in the United States, the VDL helped mitigate the disease’s impact in Minnesota through the capabilities of its Molecular Diagnostics-PCR laboratory and staff.

“We’re fortunate in that we’ve had decades of investment in high-throughput testing,” said Stephanie Rossow, a veterinary pathologist and faculty advisor to the PCR lab. “We’ve been here and ready. We’ve encountered a lot of different scenarios over the years, so we’ve got a really good group of people that can accommodate the current need and get that testing done.”

The current HPAI outbreak has been detected in wild birds, mammals, domesticated animals, such as cats, and in dairy herds. Notably, nearly 70 cases of HPAI have been confirmed in humans as well.

“You have two options: either you do the testing for early disease detection, or you react to the disease — the latter of which is very detrimental to the economy,” Naikare said. “If diseases are not controlled ahead of time, they can become a huge outbreak. This variant of HPAI has been an ongoing poultry outbreak for more than three years now. It used to be a seasonal disease and was considered a foreign animal disease. Unfortunately, the disease just keeps lingering and has consequences that are irreversible.”

The VDL is part of the National Animal Health Laboratory Network of 64 animal health laboratories helping state and federal government agencies curb the disease’s spread.