Washington Post Excessive heat made it hard for poultry workers to wear goggles and masks while culling chickens on a farm with an H5N1 outbreak.
Bird flu has infected six farmworkers in Colorado this month — the most in any state — as health officials stressed the importance of preparedness to contain the H5N1 virus spreading in dairy herds and poultry flocks across the country.
Five of the workers were culling poultry at the same commercial egg-laying farm experiencing an outbreakaffecting nearly 2 million chickens, according to Colorado officials.
During a news briefing Tuesday, federal officials said temperatures soaring above 104 degrees made it difficult for workers to wear the required full-body suits, goggles and N95 masks to protect them from the virus.
“The barns in which the culling operations occur were no doubt even hotter,” said Nirav Shah, principal deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Large-scale industrial fans were used to help cool the barns, but they also spread feathers around, which are known to carry virus, he said. The culling method involved extensive interaction with infected birds, requiring workers to put chickens in carts that kill them with carbon dioxide gas.