- ABBOTSFORD, British Columbia
(Reuters) -- Bird flu is spreading quickly in British Columbia, and officials
said on Friday they were studying an industry proposal that could lead
to the slaughter of up 16 million birds to bring the situation under control.
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- Avian influenza has been diagnosed on 18 poultry farms
in the Fraser Valley region east of Vancouver with up to 500,000 birds,
but none of the strains identified so far were of a type known to cause
serious illnesses in humans.
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- "It's spreading, and its spreading quickly,"
said Brian Evans, chief veterinarian with the Canadian Food Inspection
Agency.
-
- Officials have been trying to control the spread by eliminating
flocks in the immediate area of Abbotsford, where the first case was discovered
last month, but industry representatives want the "depopulation"
extended to a much wider area.
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- "We have said to the industry that what they are
proposing to us is an aggressive action," Evans told reporters in
Abbotsford.
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- The industry proposal would include chickens, turkeys
and other commercial poultry.
-
- Federal Agriculture Minister Bob Speller, who toured
the region on Friday, said he would decide on the industry's proposal once
he had received a recommendation from his staff. Evans said a decision
would be made "in days rather than weeks."
-
- Officials said they believe the disease was spread between
the farms by human activity rather than by ducks or other wild birds, which
are believed to have been the source of infection at the first farm.
-
- Evans said CFIA was concentrating on ensuring farmers
use proper "bio-security measures" to limit the accidental spread
of the disease by people or equipment.
-
- Although the strain of the virus at the heart of the
outbreak is not known to cause serious illness in humans, a health official
said they want to eradicate it before it mutates into a more serious strain.
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- Two workers involved in eradicating infected birds have
suffered mild illnesses doctors believe were contracted from the animals
but have both since recovered.
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- British Columbia is not a significant source of poultry
exports, but the outbreak has prompted the food inspection agency to ban
the shipment of chickens out of the Fraser River region of southwestern
British Columbia.
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- The flu strain found at the first farm was originally
diagnosed as a low-pathogenic version of the virus, but officials later
discovered it had mutated to a high-pathogenic version.
-
- The pathogenicity is a measure of how the virus behaves
in birds, agriculture officials stress.
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