OHIO — Avian Influenza, or bird flu, continues to take its toll on rural communities in Ohio.

The Buckeye State leads the nation in the number of cases at 23 million birds and climbing.

Less than a week ago, the first human case was reported in Mercer County. When it comes to mentally grasping the trickle down effect from bird flu, people living in rural communities understand it far too well. 

It hits home, and it’s personal.

Mercer County health officials are working to control it and stop the spread.

N95 masks, surgical gloves, gowns and face shields were all distributed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mercer County Health District Administrator Michelle Kimmel and Epidemiologist Deb Scheer never thought they’d be pulling them out again, but this time for farmers.  

“This is definitely a whole different focus,” said Kimmel.

Bird flu is high on the radar for people living in Mercer County and neighboring Darke County to the South.

In December, nearly 1 million chickens tested positive for bird flu in Darke County.  

“Folks don’t think about how far the eggs go,” said Mercer County resident Darby Feltz.

Feltz is from Mercer County and works at a local health food shop.

They don’t use many eggs, but he knows what they mean.

“My brother, he works at a place that processes eggs and they’re kind of having a hard time finding some,” Feltz said.

“They’re estimating half our poultry population has been euthanized,” said Kimmel.

Kimmel said they’ve been tracking results in flocks for weeks and are reaching out to farmers and workers who were possibly exposed.

“There are three tiers of exposures in these workers,” she said.

 Kimmel said the worker who was recently infected was Tier Two, meaning he came into direct contact with an infected flock while still wearing proper protective gear.

While the majority of people shouldn’t need to worry about being infected, Kimmel said, a point of pride for the city of Celina is the lake.

“There’s a lot of focus on the chicken and the poultry, but we still do have geese in our community here because of the lake,” she said.

“You don’t want to kill an entire flock for one case, but that one case could infect the whole flock and then something gets out and transfers onto the next one,” said Feltz.

Health officials said they’ll be gathering the protective gear, loading it onto their trucks, and hopefully getting it out to the farmers as soon as they can within the next several days.

Besides the flocks of poultry infected and the one human case reported, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Wildlife has received confirmation from the National Veterinary Services Laboratory that a Canada Goose from Mercer County has also tested positive.

The agency is awaiting more test results from other samples.