Third bird flu case prompts ministry warnings and questions

Sunday, April 26, 2015

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