Avian flu returns to North American poultry: six Manitoba premises and a widening US autumn wave

Avian influenza has returned to North American poultry, with the autumn wave concentrated in the US Midwest and the Canadian Prairies.

Canada's Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) confirmed highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) at six commercial poultry premises in Manitoba during September 2026 — the province's first commercial cases since December 2025 — and a further case in Alberta's Vermilion River county on 26 September. In the United States, the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) reported new HPAI detections in commercial flocks in Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota, Wisconsin and Idaho over the same month.

• Manitoba, Canada — 6 commercial premises: the rural municipalities of De Salaberry (confirmed 10 September), Cartier and Rockwood (21 September), and Rhineland, Bifrost-Riverton and Woodlands (22 September). Primary control zones were imposed around the affected sites, and Manitoba's chief veterinary officer asked producers to keep flocks indoors through the autumn migration.
• Minnesota, USA: ten flocks and roughly 261,450 birds were affected during September, including a 77,200-bird commercial meat turkey flock in Stearns County confirmed on 28 September. Minnesota ranks first in US turkey production.
• Wider spread: APHIS also confirmed September detections in South Dakota, North Dakota, Wisconsin and Idaho. Canada had been free of commercial HPAI since 16 May 2026 (Starland County, Alberta), and this is its first autumn wave of the year.
• Food safety vs. trade: the CFIA states plainly that avian influenza is not a food safety concern. The trade effect comes from animal-health measures — control zones, movement restrictions and destination-market certification rules.

For importers in the Gulf and Africa, the practical reading is the same as it was during the earlier US and Canadian outbreaks: restrictions are applied by zone and by establishment rather than to a whole country, and they are lifted once a zone regains status. What changes is the paperwork — the health certificate must match the zone and the approved plant on the day of certification, and consignments certified inside a suspension window remain ineligible however late they ship. Buyers who run two or three approved origins in parallel, and who check the certificate model before loading rather than at the port, absorb these events with far less disruption than single-origin buyers.

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Source: Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) HPAI notifications and USDA APHIS flock data, as reported by WATTAgNet, Manitoba Co-operator and Agweek, September–October 2026.