The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has thrown a quarantine around a turkey farm where some 12-week-old birds have tested positive for antibodies to avian influenza.
The virus is within the H5 family, which is worrisome, but appears to be relatively mild because the mortality rate in the 60,00-bird flock has been less than catastrophic.
The birds will be slaughtered under CFIA supervision.
There are 23 farms within the three-kilometre quarantine zone.
Its Ray Nickel of the British Columbia Poultry Association who said the mortality rate has been low.
Canada has notified the world trading community about the outbreak.
One person who worked in the barn is under watch for any disease symptoms.
Five years ago the B.C. poultry industry was crippled by an outbreak of strain H7N3 avian influenza in the Fraser Valley. All flocks. Totaling about 17,000 birds, were slaughtered then to stop the H5N3 strain of avian influenza from spreading.
The strain that has been far more worrisome to world health and agricultural people is H5N1, which began in Asia and has spread to parts of Europe and Africa. It has claimed 247 people, 115 of them in Indonesia.
Avian influenza in British Columbia
- Published on January 29, 2009
- Published on May 5, 2010
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Jim Romahn
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has thrown a quarantine around a turkey farm where some 12-week-old birds have tested positive for antibodies to avian influenza.
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