Mississippi

New strain of bird flu wipes out Mississippi poultry farm

Published

1 year ago

March 19, 2025

New strain of bird flu wipes out Mississippi poultry farm

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

A new strain of a highly pathogenic bird flu known as H7N9 has surfaced at a poultry farm in Mississippi where chickens are raised for breeding.

The finding of the new strain came as researchers separately reported a potentially positive development: Exposure to human seasonal flu may confer some immunity to H5N1 bird flu.

The new strain found in Noxubee County, Miss., was confirmed March 12 and all of the roughly 46,000 birds either died or were euthanized after the infection spread, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal Plant Health Inspection Service and Mississippi’s Board of Animal Health. None of the birds entered the food supply.

Authorities didn’t say how the birds were infected, although federal wildlife agents had been identifying low-pathogenic versions of the H7N9 virus for several years in wild birds. It is possible that the version found in the chickens is circulating in wild birds, but most researchers think it probably acquired its deadly attributes once it got into the Noxubee chicken operation.

If that’s the case, “my money is on a one-and-done, perhaps with some local spread,” said Richard Webby, an infectious disease expert at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn.

Webby said most bird flu outbreaks follow that pattern: A low-pathogenic version is introduced to commercial poultry, and it becomes highly pathogenic once inside.

The introduction of H5N1—the bird flu virus that’s been infecting dairy cows, commercial poultry, pet cats, wild animals and wild birds since March 2024—into poultry and livestock populations was a notable exception to this trend: It was already circulating among wild birds and animals as a highly pathogenic virus.

John Korslund, a veterinarian and former USDA researcher, agreed with Webby and noted that the operation housed breeder broilers: chickens that are grown and maintained for breeding purposes, not for their meat.

This is significant because breeders live for months, if not years.

If a low-pathogenic virus “happens to get into a broiler meat flock, the birds don’t get sick and they go on to slaughter,” he said. But when a breeder flock picks up that virus, “the virus can replicate for weeks … this may well be what happened in Mississippi.”

However, according to USDA rules, routine and periodic testing of breeder birds for low-pathogenic avian influenza is required. In 2017, an outbreak of H7N9 occurred along the Mississippi flyway, probably starting in late February, but reported only in March. A summary report of the outbreak suggested the virus was introduced via wild birds.

As suspected in this case, it is believed it started as “low path” and only became “high path” once it got into commercial operation.

Nevertheless, experts said, if they are wrong and a highly pathogenic virus is circulating in wild birds, it’ll start popping up in other states and sites too.

“Time will tell how nasty it gets this time,” Korslund said.

The key to preventing these kinds of outbreaks—or at least getting ahead of them—is wildlife surveillance, the experts said.

Agencies such as the USDA, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Geological Survey’s Wildlife Health Center, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have divisions that are tasked with sampling wild birds and other animals for infectious diseases. The information they gather is then used by agriculture and public health officials to determine where and when to bolster biosecurity, or to keep a lookout.

Without that information, said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan’s Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization in Canada: “We’re flying blind.”

In the positive news that came out this week, a team of international researchers found that ferrets exposed to a common seasonal human flu—H1N1—before being exposed to H5N1, acquire some immunity from the seasonal flu.

Ferrets that weren’t exposed to the seasonal flu before being infected with H5N1 had high levels of the virus in their respiratory tissues, as well as detectable virus in their hearts, spleen, liver and intestines.

In contrast, those that had been exposed to the seasonal flu beforehand had virus only in the respiratory tract—and at pretty low levels.

“The biggest take-home message of our data is that prior human seasonal virus infection can provide some level of protection against the lethality of bird flu,” said Seema Lakdawala, a microbiologist at Emory University in Atlanta and one of the study’s researchers.

Webby, the St. Jude researcher, said the work supports other research that has looked at the potential protectiveness of prior exposure to flu viruses.

“It is for sure playing some role in modulating H5N1 disease in humans,” he said, but was unlikely the only factor. “After all, many people have severe seasonal H1N1 infections each year despite lots of immunity to the virus from previous H1N1 exposures.”

But the finding may help explain why the virus has recently been associated with generally mild disease in people who have been infected. Seventy people in the U.S. have been infected since March 2024, and one person has died. (Four people, including the Louisiana patient who died, have been hospitalized).

Before last year, the virus was thought to have killed roughly 50% of those infected.

Rasmussen said the worry now is that if H5N1 mutates to become transmissible between people, it’ll be young children as well as the old and compromised who are likely to be most affected. Children younger than 5 are less likely to have been exposed to seasonal human influenza viruses than school-aged children and adults—potentially making them more susceptible to the harms of a virus such as H5N1.

In addition, she said, the bird flu viruses circulating in birds and livestock “as far as we know, can’t transmit easily between people. But, if there’s reassortment, then who knows? We don’t know what kind of residual population-level immunity we would have” from a virus such as that.

How seasonal flu vaccines could affect this protection isn’t clear.

“Seasonal vaccines will not provide the same diversity of immune response as natural infection and are unlikely to provide the same level of protection,” said Lakdawala, who is testing this issue in the lab.

2025 Los Angeles Times. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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Mississippi

Stamps Super Burgers named best burger in Mississippi

Published

5 hours ago

April 6, 2026

Press Room

Stamps Super Burgers named best burger in Mississippi

A Jackson, Mississippi, icon has been named the best burger in Mississippi.

Foodie offers tips for “living a delicious life” from where you go out to eat to what you cook at home. It’s ranked the best hamburger restaurant in every state.

“Of course, the bigger burger chain names have become famous worldwide, but U.S. soil is also home to a dazzling variety of burger businesses, from those selling everything from high-end gastroburgers and gluten- or meat-free versions, to hole-in-the-wall places that have been slinging sliders for generations,” Scheenagh Harrington wrote for Foodie.

The site’s pick for the best in the Magnolia State is not surprising.

“Many businesses claim their product is the best in town, but Jackson-based Stamps Super Burgers really does deliver,” Harrington wrote.

They warned to plan your trip. Afternoons can get very busy.

Why do people love Stamps burgers?

Stamps Super Burgers, 1801 Dalton St., Jackson, was founded in 1986. Since then, three generations of the Stamps family have served juicy burgers and fresh-cut fries to the community.

Today, it’s co-owned by Phil Stamps Jr. In a previous interview with the Clarion Ledger, he said it “originally started with my grandmother and grandfather in 1970 when they purchased it from Canterbury Grocery, and the entire family operated that business as a grocery and meat market for a while before transitioning over to burgers in 1986.”

The kitchen is open, in the center of the restaurant. You can watch employees cut potatoes for fries or man the grill.

A signature Stamps hamburger comes with an 11-ounce beef patty and mayonnaise, ketchup, mustard, lettuce, tomato, pickle and onions. The menu also has wings and different burger options, like turkey or portobello.

The Washington Addition restaurant regularly tops “best of” rankings for the state. In 2024, it was on the USA TODAY Restaurants of the Year list.

Where are the best burgers in Jackson, MS?

Yelp lists the Top 10 burger joints in Jackson, based on user reviews.

Stamps Super Burgers
Foundation Burger
Fat Albert’s
Cs’s
Rooster’s Restaurant
Rowan’s
Bulldog Burger
The Pig & Pint
Brent’s Drugs
Not Just a Burger

Contributing: Kiara Fleming

Bonnie Bolden is the Deep South Connect reporter for Mississippi with USA TODAY NETWORK. Email her at bbolden@gannett.com.

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Mississippi

An 1850s Parsonage in Natchez, Mississippi, Is Selling for the First Time in Over a Century

Published

17 hours ago

April 5, 2026

Press Room

An 1850s Parsonage in Natchez, Mississippi, Is Selling for the First Time in Over a Century

A 174-year-old brick parsonage house on a bluff above the Mississippi River is now for sale in Natchez, Mississippi, asking $1.985 million.

The home, completed in 1852, was built by architect James Hardie as a residence for Methodist ministers, according to historical records. The land was donated by Peter Little, a wealthy cotton broker and slave owner who built the city’s historic Rosalie mansion.

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The house was initially built as a one-story residence with an “English” basement and a carriage house; a two-story annex was added later, according to the listing with Douglas Adams of Crescent Sotheby’s International Realty, informed by the Historic Natchez Foundation.

“The location is what is superb because it is one of the highest points in Natchez overlooking the Mississippi River,” said Adams, who posted the listing Thursday.

In 1893, the Parsonage changed hands for the last time when it was purchased by James and Agnes Metcalfe, and has been in the Metcalfe family ever since.

Known as the Parsonage, the residence is considered a classic example of Greek Revival architecture from the pre-Civil War South, with a wide portico, raised porch and sash windows. It is located on South Broadway Street, in a commanding position that overlooks Bluff Park, the Mississippi and downtown Natchez. It spans 6,500 square feet with five bedrooms, two formal parlors flanking a central hall and richly detailed interiors that include original exposed-brick walls, fireplaces and stained-glass windows.

In addition to a front porch, the property includes several outdoor terraces and balconies, including a second-floor wraparound deck and a balustraded rooftop—which has the best vantage point from which to see the wide views.

The home was occupied for many years by the late Albert and Gay Metcalfe, who married at the Parsonage in 1959, and would host events for friends. “It became something of a social hub,” Adams said. “They’d host families to celebrate someone’s life; there may have been some weddings that occurred there.”

Gay Metcalfe died in 2023 and the heirs are her three children, Adams said. The family couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

Hardie, the architect, was a Scottish immigrant who built several other notable buildings in Natchez, including most prominently St. Mary Basilica, a Gothic Revival structure on the National Register of Historic Places, and the Homewood plantation, a Greek Revival mansion.

MORE: Manhattan’s Richest Home Buyers Were Out in Force as $10 Million-Plus Sales Surged in the First Quarter

According to local lore, the Parsonage was commissioned by Little because his wife, Eliza’s religious devotion led her to welcome every passing minister into their home, according to “Natchez,” a 1940s history of the city. Displeased with the “long siege of such guests,” Little decided to build a separate home for his wife’s visitors.

Little’s own mansion at Rosalie still stands today near the site of the 1729 massacre of the Natchez Native Americans, from whom the city takes its name.

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