THE US agriculture ministry is trying to rescind letters firing health and safety inspectors amid an ongoing bird flu outbreak that has already led to the slaughter of 160 million chickens and sent the price of eggs through the roof.

Thousands of federal employees have been sacked in sweeping orders issued by the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) controlled by the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, but the US Department of Agriculture said some of those told they had been fired were essential to its “response to highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI).”

“Although several Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service positions supporting HPAI were notified of their terminations over the weekend, we are working to swiftly rectify the situation,” a department spokesperson said.

This month authorities acknowledged the first death of a human being from the H5N1 bird flu strain, of a pensioner in Louisiana who died in December. Animal rights campaigners say the rapid spread of the virus is down to industrial-scale factory farming, which could be a breeding ground for a new pandemic.

Republican Congressman Don Bacon called on Mr Musk’s department to be more careful about its mass sackings, saying it should “measure twice and cut once” as it seeks to slash the size of the state.

Another 7,000 federal employees, Internal Revenue Service workers who have not completed probation, were sacked today. Besides cutting the size of the tax collection agency, Mr Trump has also ordered it to loan staff to immigration enforcement to help with mass deportations.