- PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) -
A flock of 12,000 chickens in Delaware was destroyed on Saturday in a
bid to prevent the spread of avian flu, and state agriculture officials
hastened to say the virus differs from the one that has killed people
in Asia.
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- The chickens were slaughtered on a farm in southern Kent
County, Delaware, at 11:30 a.m. (1630 GMT) after two birds tested positive
for the virulent H7 virus on Friday, Delaware agriculture secretary Michael
Scuse said.
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- The virus is different from the H5N1 virus in Asia, Scuse
said. That strain has forced the slaughter of millions of birds there
and killed 18 people in Thailand and Vietnam who had come into direct
contact with them.
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- "The virus that is in Asia is a mutation of H5,"
Scuse said. He said the H7 strain found in Delaware is fatal to poultry
but does not transmit to humans.
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- Scuse said he was "fairly confident" the virus
had not spread. As a safeguard, however, other flocks within a two-mile
radius of the infected farm would be tested, and the outcome of that
process would probably be known by Tuesday, he said.
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- If the virus is found in any of the other flocks, the
testing area would be extended to five miles, he said.
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- The slain flock's carcasses will be composted at the
farm, which has been quarantined, he said.
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- South Korea, which is battling a deadly outbreak of the
virus, reacted swiftly to reports of the discovery in Delaware, immediately
halting imports of U.S. poultry.
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- Poultry is a multibillion-dollar industry in the Delmarva
Peninsula where the infected farm is located, and is the mainstay of
the local economy. The Delmarva region, which lies between the Chesapeake
Bay and the Atlantic Ocean, consists of parts of Delaware, Maryland and
Virginia.
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- The farmer did not supply chickens to Purdue or any other
commercial poultry company, said Anne Fitzgerald, a spokeswoman for the
Delaware Agriculture Department.
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- The Delaware case would not be the first time the H5
strain, or the so-called "low-pathogenic" virus, has hit the
poultry sector in the United States, he said.
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- An outbreak of a related strain of bird flu in the northeastern
United States in 1983 and 1984 forced more than 17 million birds to be
destroyed, the USDA said. That incident also caused retail egg prices
to soar by more than 30 percent.
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- © Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.
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