- "H7N3 commonly manifests as pink eye in people,
but there is worry that it could mutate and become more deadly in people
who are already suffering from the flu."
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- VANCOUVER (CP) -- An extremely
virulent form of bird flu has spread to a second B.C. hatchery where 36,000
chickens must now be slaughtered, prompting officials to step up inspections
in their fight to keep the outbreak from getting out of control and crippling
the industry.
-
- The farm, just two kilometres away from the property
where disease first struck last month, has been infected with the same
strain of avian flu, said Dr. Cornelius Kiley, a veterinarian with the
Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
-
- "Over the weekend we will be euthanizing and disposing
of 36,000 birds on the farm which are in a complex of seven barns,"
said Kiley.
-
- The strain confirmed Friday kills nearly 100 per cent
of birds it infects but poses a low level of risk to humans.
-
- The move comes just weeks after the gassing of 18,000
birds at the Loewen Acres breeding operation in Abbotsford.
-
- Both farms are under quarantine and government has cracked
down further, declaring a huge control zone restricting the movement of
any bird in captivity, including pets, day-old chicks and hatching eggs.
-
- Farmers must now apply for a permit to move the birds
and any bird product including eggs out of the area that stretches to the
North Shore mountains, west to the ocean, south to the U.S. border and
east to the town of Hope.
-
- "The Trans-Canada Highway runs across the eastern
corner where there weigh scales and we can monitor the trucking of products
through there," Dr. Kiley said.
-
- The ocean and the mountains are natural barriers and
the U.S. has banned B.C. poultry, turning around any cargo at the border.
-
- He said the order is consistent with international standards
for dealing with the H7N3 strain of bird flu.
-
- H7N3 commonly manifests as pink eye in people, but there
is worry that it could mutate and become more deadly in people who are
already suffering from the flu.
-
- A different strain - H5 - caused a frightening number
of fatalities in Asia this winter.
-
- The CFIA has widened the area where it is conducting
intense surveillance to a 10-kilometre radius around the infected farms.
-
- Dr. Kiley said they have every reason to believe the
system is working.
-
- "It is because of our active surveillance that we
identified the virus on the second farm, where only a very small number
of birds had died.
-
- "There is no indication there is a problem anywhere
else but we can only take things one step at a time, one day at a time,"
he said.
-
- Dr. Kiley said the agency has to seriously investigate
the source of the virus because it seems it is managing to spread, despite
containment efforts.
-
- "We know the two farms are approximately two kilometres
apart. The virus typed out to be the same on both properties, which does
suggest there could be link.
-
- "It could be vehicular traffic, a common water source,
wild birds. We may never know."
-
- Virology experts say the industry has been too lax in
checking for bird flu. If they had bothered to check, they would have found
it smouldering in the rural hatcheries a year before chickens began dying,
said Earl Brown, a virology professor at the University of Ottawa.
-
- Not stamping the disease out earlier allowed it to mutate,
become more deadly and spread, he said.
-
- The strict measures in place now are designed to ease
concerns of Canada's trading partners and show them that the outbreak is
being aggressively battled.
-
- The European Union banned all imports of poultry products
and pet birds from Canada on Thursday.
-
- Fourteen countries placed full or partial bans on Canadian
poultry after the first outbreak was confirmed. With news of testing at
a second property, Japan and the United States moved Wednesday to keep
the products out.
-
- The value of all exports involving B.C. poultry, eggs
and egg products is about $22.5-million, with over half the product shipped
to the United States.
-
- Canadian poultry exports are worth $125-million and the
Chicken Farmers of Canada say they expect producers will suffer a serious
hit - one that gets worse every day the bans continue.
-
- © 2004 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights
Reserved.
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