If you shop early for your holiday turkey like I do, you might want to throw it out immediately. 118 Iowa turkey farm employees are now under a level 5 quarantine after 32 employees have tested positive for a mutated form of the Avian Bird Flu virus. Iowa Meadowland Turkey Farm, the largest supplier of turkeys in the United States, has been ordered by the CDC to quarantine over 300,000 holiday turkeys. The CDC has confirmed 5,000 turkeys have tested positive for the mutated virus since Monday’s incident.
According to eyewitnesses several employees became sick with excessive vomiting and high fevers while working at the farm on Monday. “There were people throwing up in the halls, outside and in the bathrooms,” said Rita Miller a long time employee at the Meadowland farm who was taken into quarantine. “I can only pray I don’t get it. The evac team came up in hazmat gear, that worries me. They kept calling it a level 5 quarantine. and now I’m stuck in here.”
The “here” that Miller is referring to is a FEMA Camp set up right outside the farm that is now housing 118 employees that may have been exposed and/or contaminated with the mutated virus. “A level 5 quarantine is a warning we have not had to put on record in decades,” explained Eric Salazar of the World Health Organization (WHO). “This is not just an ordinary avian bird flu virus. The strand is much greater as it has mutated and become resistant to any of the antibiotics or flu shots we have on the market currently. Scientists are doing their best to get this under control.”
The Center for Disease Control (CDC) has ordered the turkey farm to burn all of the 300,000 birds that may have been infected with the virus. A spokesperson for Iowa Meadowland Turkey Farm said there is a good chance Avian Bird Flu infected turkeys may have already shipped out to major suppliers for distribution. Each retailer will have to perform recalls individually if they feel they have received a contaminated shipment.
If you have any of the symptoms associated with the bird flu (which begin within 2-8 days of contamination) they would include:
- Fever
- Cough
- Sore throat
- Muscle aches
- Nausea
- Vomiting
- Anal bleeding
- Impotence
- Green vaginal discharge
- Insomnia