Kansas agriculture officials warn of rising HPAI detections, outline response gaps for screw worm and rabies

Dr. Justin Smith, state animal health official, told the Committee on Agriculture and Natural Resources that Kansas continues to track highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) and other foreign-animal-disease threats and is working to shore up surveillance, testing and response capacity.

"HPAI is a multispecies disease," Smith said, noting the virus has been present nationally since 2022 and that Kansas had not reported a confirmed dairy-cattle case since March 2024. He said Kansas participated in the national milk-testing strategy and that recent positives have concentrated in game-bird facilities and a single large commercial operation that held about 360,000 birds and materially affected the state's USDA status.

The department provided a 30-day snapshot showing 12 affected premises in 10 counties; red counties indicate active control areas, yellow show recently released control areas and green indicate previously released areas. Smith explained that quarantines remain on facilities and in some cases can prevent repopulation for up to 120 days, while commercial positives typically trigger expanded control areas and more intensive regional…