Presented during the 2022 North Dakota Geospatial Summit in Bismarck, ND, September 14-15.

1. Learning on the Fly: The MN GIS Response to Bird Flu in 2015 and 2022
Karl Hillstrom | GIS Specialist

2. Topics
• IT Background
• HPAI Background
• Outbreak and Response Comparison of 2015 and 2022
• Lessons Learned and Preparing for the Future
• Questions and Comments

3. IT Background
• 2011: Legislation forms MNIT, a Centralized IT Agency for the state of MN
• 2011 – 2015: Consolidation of IT Services Expands our responsibilities to
include supporting the Board of Animal Health (BAH) in addition to Ag (MDA)
• Late 2014: Joint Incident Management Team between MDA and BAH does
training exercises on Animal Health Emergency Response
• Early 2015: MNIT @ MDA & BAH begins GIS Support for the Minnesota
Poultry Testing Lab

4. HPAI or Bird Flu Background
• Avian influenza (AI) is a disease in domestic poultry, such as
chickens, turkeys, pheasants, quail, ducks and geese.
• Waterfowl and shorebirds are natural hosts for the virus that causes
avian influenza and will shed the virus into their environment while
often showing no signs of illness.
• Some types of avian influenza are called highly pathogenic (HPAI)
because in contrast to waterfowl, these viruses are rapidly fatal for
poultry.
Source: http://www.extension.umn.edu/agriculture/poultry/avian-influenza/index.html

5. USDA Response Overview
1. Quarantine—restricting movement of poultry and poultry-moving
equipment into and out of the control area;
2. Eradicate—humanely euthanizing the affected flock(s);
3. Monitor region—testing wild and domestic birds in a broad area
around the quarantine area;
4. Disinfect—killing the virus in the affected flock locations; and
5. Test—confirming that the poultry farm is AI virus-free.

6. Response Zones

7. ICS Structure 2015 & 2022
Here we are!!

8. 2015 Outbreak
• March 5th
• An isolated commercial turkey farm in Western MN tests positive for HPAI
• Control Area established
• No commercial premises within 10km
• A few dozen backyard farms
• State Incident Management Team Stood Up
• Every foreign animal disease detection is an emergency, but we had
no idea what was yet to come…

9. 2015 Outbreak
• March 30th:
• Next commercial flock to test positive
• This time in the heart of the Minnesota Poultry Industry
• May 2nd
• 77 Cases
• June 5th
• Last case found
• Total: 108 Cases

11. Kandiyohi County is hit.

12. Last new case and start of
control zone releases.

13. 2022 Outbreak
• Friday March 25th – Start of the Outbreak
• Saturday March 26th – Long Planned Server and Database Migration
• By April 4th – 22 infected sites
• May 27th – Final Infected Premises of the outbreak identified
• July 1st – GIS Team Officially Offboarded
• 81 Total Premises
• 60 Commercial Premises
• 21 Backyard Premises

14. Data Sources: 2015 vs 2022
2015
• Minnesota Poultry Testing Lab (MPTL)
• Very accurate points
• USDA Emergency Management
Response System (EMRS)
• Points from MPTL loaded
• Many Backyard flocks added
• Syncing back and forth
2022
• MPTL Database migrated to BAH CoreOne
• EMRS Flocks from 2015
• Required updates, but a good start
• Ongoing refinement of both datasets

15. Data Processing: 2015 vs 2022
2015
• Download at 6-8 Spreadsheets twice a day
• Tracking all involved premises
• Post-processing to extrapolate statuses
• Exporting many PDFs and using Sharepoint
• Single restricted Web Map
2022
• Download single Tally Sheet, as needed
• Tally Sheet only has infected Premises
• Leverage points from 2015 for proximity
• PDFs by Request
• Less processing allowing more frequent
updates

16. GIS Products Overview
• Interactive Web Map
• Printed Maps
• Wall maps
• Field maps
• Exam Status Maps (2015 only)
• Geographically informed spreadsheets
Sample Field Map

17. 2015 Interactive Map
• Used mostly by permitting team
to locate premises in relation to
control zones

18. Situational Awareness

19. Backyard Surveillance
2015
2022

20. Field Maps
2015 2022

21. Exam Status Map (2015 Only)

22. Geographically Informed Spreadsheets

23. 9/28/2022 23
2015 H5N2 HPAI
• 21 States
• 211 Commercial Poultry Premises (90%)
• 21 Backyard Poultry (10%)
(USDA Final Report, 2015)
2022 Confirmed H5 HPAI
Poultry /Non-Poultry Premises
• 36 States
• 360 Confirmed Flocks
• 184 Commercial flocks (51%)
• 176 Backyard flocks (49%)
(June 3, 2022)

24. 9/28/2022 Healthy Animals for Healthy People and Communities | mn.gov/bah 24

25. New in 2022
• Tally Sheets streamlined data extraction
• Tiered map access via AGOL
• Internal – Everything
• Industry Partners – Commercial Only
• External Partners – More than industry, less than Internal
• Public Map
• Limited scales for the map and tight scale dependency on service
• Hybrid – In-person and remote EOC

26. New AGOL Map Template

27. New Public Map

28. Future Improvements
• Better integration into the Onboarding and Off Boarding Process
• Tracking hybrid worker access to web maps
• Find a way to share something more than county level data with the public
• Continue to keep an ear on the ground
• The maps sell themselves, but we still need to make sure people can
access them.
• Work with Situation Unit Leadership to set parameters for data entry
• Accuracy is more important than speed!

29. Acknowledgements
• USDA Veterinary Services
• Minnesota Board of Animal Health
• Minnesota Department of Agriculture
• Minnesota Poultry Testing Lab
• Minnesota IT Services
• Minnesota Turkey Growers Association
• Minnesota Department of Natural Resources – Wildlife Division

30. Questions and Comments
Karl Hillstrom | GIS Specialist