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Iowa, the United States’ top egg producer, has become the third state to declare a state of emergency over the growing bird flu outbreak, joining Minnesota and Wisconsin, RT reported.

At the time of Gov. Terry Branstad’s Friday press conference, 16 million egg-laying chickens had tested positive for bird flu. The state of emergency is effective immediately and will continue until May 31 unless terminated sooner or extended by the governor.

“While the avian influenza outbreak does not pose a risk to humans, we are taking the matter very seriously and believe declaring a state of emergency is the best way to make all resources available,” Branstad said Friday. 

“Even before the virus began in Iowa, our office was monitoring the outbreak in other states. We’ll continue our work – as we’ve been doing since the first outbreak in Buena Vista County – in hopes of stopping the virus’ aggressive spread throughout Iowa.”

So far, 21 poultry farms spanning 10 Iowa counties have reported cases of bird flu that are either presumed positives or confirmed positives. An estimated 16 million egg-laying chickens in the state have tested positive for the flu and will be culled – a number that represents a quarter of the state’s chicken population.