An outbreak of avian flu in 2004 resulted in millions of healthy turkeys and other poultry being slaughtered at Fraser Valley farms. The virus is suspected to have resurfaced in the Abbotsford area.
Photograph by: Kim Stallknecht file, The Province
ABBOTSFORD, B.C. — About 23 farms in the Abbotsford area have been placed under quarantine and are undergoing testing to confirm the presence of Avian influenza, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said Friday.
"We are investigating the possibility that an H5 Avian influenza strain is present at a commercial poultry operation in the Fraser Valley," said a spokeswoman for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
Monika Mazur said samples were submitted to a provincial lab "after some respiratory problems were observed in the flock" of one farm in the Abbotsford area.
She said those samples are now with a CFIA-accredited lab in Winnipeg for additional testing and confirmation.
Initial tests done early Friday at an Abbotsford lab showed the presence of an H5 subtype of the Avian flu virus, said CFIA disease-control specialist Sandra Stephens, who is based in Saskatoon.
Stephens said there are about 16 subtypes of Avian influenza, but only H5 and H7 subtypes are reportable to the World Health Organization's animal-health authority.
Stephens said H5 and H7 are on the international watch list because they have a higher likelihood of mutating from a "low pathogenic" to "high pathogenic" form — in other words, from a bug that would cause few symptoms in the birds to one that causes high rates of illness or fatalities in a flock.
As a precaution, the Abbotsford farm and an adjacent poultry operation, involving about 50,000 birds, have been placed under quarantine, as well as all farms within a three-kilometre radius of the suspect farm. Mazur did not know how many of those farms were also poultry operations.
The president of the B.C. Poultry Association, Ray Nickel, said "the other surrounding farms will be allowed to move product, do their normal business subject to a test that shows their flocks are clean."
Nickel said "this has nothing to do with human health or product contamination. It is only about bird infections."
However, he said it brings back some bad memories of an Avian flu outbreak in 2004 when a highly pathogenic H7N3 strain of the disease broke out and millions of birds had to be destroyed.
According to the CFIA website, Avian influenza is a contagious viral infection caused by the influenza virus Type "A," which can affect several species of food-producing birds, pet birds and wild birds.
Stephens said early indications are that the H5 detected in the Abbotsford flock suggest a low-pathogenic form due to mild symptoms and few bird deaths.
However, she said eradication of the infected birds will likely be done regardless to meet the WHO's standards for containing the virus.
During the 2004 outbreak, more than 15 million birds were ordered slaughtered in the Fraser Valley but no humans were affected.
The strain of bird flu in that outbreak, H7N3, causes milder symptoms in humans than the H5N1 strain that has been in the news out of China recently.
The Chinese strain killed at least 247 people in China in 2003 and 2004 and has re-emerged in recent weeks, being held responsible for three deaths in 2009.
Mazur said "human illness caused by Avian influenza is rare, unless the humans have been in close contact with infected birds."
— with files from Canwest News Service
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