U.S. bans Canadian poultry after outbreak of avian flu in Saskatchewan

A Saskatchewan, Canada chicken farm was confirmed to have cases of avian flu. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency(CFIA) said yesterday that the infected farm’s relative isolation should allow for an effective quarantine. Canadian farmers hope that there will be no repeat of the devastating outbreak two years ago in British Columbia, which led to the destruction of seventeen million chickens. “Certainly in B.C. there’s a very concentrated area with large numbers of birds. In Saskatchewan, we have a smaller industry and it’s spread over a larger geographic area, so we don’t have the same density of poultry,” Dr. Sandra Stephens, veterinary program specialist with the CFIA, told CTV Newsnet.

The recent Saskatchewan quarantine and the British Columbia outbreak were caused by the highly pathogenic H7N3 flu strain. H7N3 is highly contagious in poultry, but is not seen as a risk to humans. In the outbreak two years ago, two poultry workers became infected and suffered briefly from flu-like symptoms. It is not the same as the strain circulating in Asia, Africa and Europe — H5N1 — which has been associated with human deaths. “This is an H7 subtype so it’s not closely related at all to that H5 subtype,” Stephens said. Stephens added, though: “we do recognize that there is potential with avian influenza viruses to have some capacity to produce illness in people. Normally those conditions would be very mild.”

The chicken farm is about 40 kilometres north of Regina and has been quarantined since Sunday. The CFIA will oversee the cleaning and disinfection of the barns, vehicles, equipment, and tools to eliminate any infectious material that may remain. Normally, birds on any commercial operations within one kilometre of an infected farm would also be destroyed, but it appears that there are no other bird farms in the immediate area. Any poultry operations within ten kilometres of the infected farm will be closely monitored for signs of illness. “Certainly we will continue to do surveillance on poultry in close proximity, or any contacts that are considered to be at risk for at least the next three weeks,” Stephens said.

Officials insist the food supply is safe, but the United States has closed its border to Saskatchewan poultry for now. The source of the infection is not known and the CFIA says it may be difficult to confirm the source. They say the possibility that wild waterfowl, which are natural hosts for avian flu, may have brought the infection “cannot be discounted.”