by SUSAN MANN
A third case of avian influenza last week has prompted Ontario’s agriculture ministry to remind all provincial poultry farmers to use heightened biosecurity practices and not send dead birds off their farms unless they’ve contacted their veterinarian.
However, it’s not yet known definitively how the virus is getting to the birds in the barns, says Ingrid DeVisser, chair of the Ontario Feather Board Command Centre. The feather board command centre is the poultry industry’s disease management organization.
“We do know the migratory birds carry avian influenza,” she says. “We know it’s virulent and we know it loves this kind of damp, mild weather. We know it’s killed by disinfectant and by high heat and sunlight.”
But “biosecurity is working because the vast majority of chickens and turkeys (in Ontario) aren’t affected,” she explains. “We’re just going to continue to work hard at biosecurity. It doesn’t eliminate all of the risks but it certainly helps to mitigate the chances of virus movement.”
The threat of avian influenza is “not limited to Oxford County,” says the April 23 biosecurity advisory from the agriculture ministry. It exists “throughout the path of the migratory bird flyways, which involve much of the province.”
Meanwhile the third farm confirmed to have the H5 virus is an Oxford County turkey operation with 8,000 birds. The farm was already under quarantine in the second control zone when the provincial Animal Health lab at the University of Guelph confirmed the avian influenza. The farm has been under quarantine since April 19.
The second control zone covers a 10-kilometre radius from the chicken broiler-breeding farm infected with the virus. It spans a portion of Oxford and Waterloo counties. The first zone is a 10-kilometre radius from the first turkey farm near Woodstock with the virus.
Additional testing at the CFIA lab in Winnipeg is being done to determine if it is H5N2 avian influenza, the same virus as has been identified on the other farms. It’s also the same strain that caused the outbreak in poultry farms in British Columbia in December 2014 and is currently circulating in the United States.
DeVisser says the results from the CFIA on the third farm will likely be handed down later today.
DeVisser says the “quarantine zone won’t change” due to the finding of a third farm with the virus. “It will stay as it was.”
According to its website, the Agency has finished euthanizing the turkeys on the third farm. BF
Comments
Scientists have discovered that crops of spinach growing in fields within 10 miles of a CAFO chicken factory are 172 times more likely to be contaminated with deadly E. coli bacteria. This contamination likely comes from the chicken factory exhaust air that is spewed into the atmosphere on a near-constant basis.
The study was done by Texas A&M University, published in July 2013 in the peer-reviewed journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology., and was summarized in Science Daily in June 2013. See http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3697504/pdf/zam4347.pdf
As we should know, correlation doesn't prove causation. There is a slim chance that this 720 times higher risk is a spurious correlation that means nothing. However, that is highly unlikely, especially with such a huge risk ratio of 720 times.
As an example, the odds ratio for cigarette smoking and lung cancer vary between 7 (1 cigarette per day) to as high as 16.3 (25+ cigarettes per day). See the 1947 epidemiological study of Doll, and 1951 study by Hill.
Compare the odds ratio of 720 for E.coli/chicken factory to 16.3 for cigarette-lung cancer. If you believe cigarette smoking increases the risk of lung cancer, should you believe that mega chicken factories cause or contribute to significantly higher risk of E.coli induced food contamination leading to food poisoning?
If a CAFO chicken factory spews infectious E.coli 10 miles downwind, can CAFO chicken factories spew infectious Bird Flu downwind too?
Can CAFO chicken factories ventilation systems suck in infectious materials from wild birds (or an infected CAFO) that is upwind of this yet uninfected CAFO?
It seems safe to assume that CAFO's are designed on the same principles as a screen door on a submarine; highly questionable technology.
Glenn Black
Small Flock Poultry Farmers of Canada
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