Monday, June 19, 2006
Second PEI farm ordered quarantined (Canada bird flu update)
A second Prince Edward Island farm has been placed under a quarantine order as a precautionary measure as authorities investigate the finding of an H5 avian flu virus in a domestic goose in the province.
An official of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said the move was taken when investigators learned there had been traffic of people and perhaps poultry between the farm where the virus was found and another farm, both of which have small, mixed, free-range backyard flocks. Jim Clark, national manager of CFIA’s avian influenza working group, said no birds from the second farm have displayed signs of illness and for the time being, authorities have not ordered their destruction.
It will be tomorrow or Wednesday at the earliest before lab testing confirms whether the virus was truly an H5, and whether it was a highly pathogenic form or a virus of low pathogenicity. The Asian H5N1 virus is a high-path virus. The CFIA’s National Centre for Foreign Animal Diseases in Winnipeg will also be looking to determine whether the virus is of a North American lineage or is one of the Asian viruses.
“The fact that there are no birds ill there—if the virus has moved—that again would be additional evidence that what we’re dealing with here is a low pathogenicity virus,” said the Ottawa-based Dr. Clark.
“There’s nothing that’s obvious for us that would suggest . . . it is anything except a low pathogenicity virus,” he said, but added that until testing is done there is no way to be sure.