Egg prices have soared across the nation, as Maryland and Delaware battle a worsening avian flu outbreak that has devastated poultry flocks.

On January 21, health officials confirmed Eastern Maryland's fourth case of avian flu within a week, this time on a broiler farm in Dorchester County. More than 134 million birds have been affected since the outbreak began in January 2022, killing more than 20 million egg-laying hens in the fall of 2024 alone, out of the roughly 520 million total farmed chickens in the U.S. Speaking to CNN, American Egg Board CEO Emily said that it could take up to nine months to replace flocks killed by the virus. In the meantime, grocery stores across the U.S. have struggled to keep shelves stocked, while the average price for a dozen eggs has risen from $2.71 in June 2024, to $4.14 in December 2024, the last month for which data tracked by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics is available.

According to The Guardian, the Delmarva Peninsula — which includes parts of Maryland, Virginia and Delaware — has been hit especially hard, as the nation's leading producer of broiler chickens, supplying roughly 6.5% of the country's poultry. The region's first cases of bird flu were traced back to tainted wastewater in Delaware in early December of 2024. The disease then killed or sickened as many as 50 snow geese, before spreading to commercial chicken flocks in the surrounding area.

The virus spread to chickens in Maryland in early January, where health officials have been attempting to quarantine and cull infected flocks. Leaders in both Delaware and Maryland have also been coordinating their response efforts, as part of an "all hands on deck" bid to quell the outbreak, a spokesperson for the cross-state task force told The Guardian.