Animal experts are warning people to protect their pets and farm animals from bird flu infection as migratory birds make their way across Washington.

A new low-cost sensor that detects airborne H5N1 avian flu in under five minutes sounds mighty good as bird flu continues to spread, infecting 70 people in the United States in the past 11 months, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta has confirmed.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on Wednesday said President Trump is launching a five-part plan to prevent bird flu in poultry flocks and bring down egg prices.

Highly pathogenic avian influenza continues to devastate poultry flocks throughout the United States, as well as cause significant illness in cattle, said David Diemert, MD, professor of medicine and professor of microbiology, immunology, and tropical medicine at George Washington University in Washinton, DC, in an interview.

Recent outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza (also known as bird flu) have created a need for rapid and sensitive detection methods to mitigate its spread. Now, researchers in ACS Sensors have developed a prototype sensor that detects a type of influenza virus that causes bird flu (H5N1) in air samples.

Avian flu is not just for the birds; cases have been reported in the United States in dairy cows, as well as types of cats, a fox, a seal, and most recently, rats and domestic indoor cats, according to the latest data from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS).

So far in 2025, Ohio has had 69 commercial poultry flocks hit by HPAI, 45 of which have been in Mercer County. Other Ohio counties to have lost commercial poultry to HPAI in 2025 include Darke, Van Wert and Auglaize.