Avian flu H5N1 | Already 700,000 farmed birds slaughtered in the country

Highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza, which began infecting farmed birds last December in Canada, has already resulted in the culling of more than 700,000 birds, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) said. ) tuesday.

Ariane Kroll
The Press

To control the highly contagious virus that is wreaking havoc on four continents, all birds on infected farms are culled under CFIA supervision, an operation also known as “depopulation”.

Four months after the discovery of the first cases, on December 20, at a non-commercial farm in the Avalon Peninsula, Newfoundland, breeders are down to “700,000 birds slaughtered in Canada”, indicated the D^D Manon Racicot, CFIA veterinarian, in a telephone interview.

In Quebec, the virus was detected on four farms in Estrie in less than a week, from April 12 to 17. The birds to be culled, however, are not all included in the Canadian tally, dated Monday.

The three infected commercial farms in Quebec all produce duck. Canards du Lac Brome had announced that its Saint-Claude site was affected and that Knowlton was under quarantine, but did not give an update on the latter. The CFIA, which does not publish the names of contaminated farms, confirmed a third commercial farm in the MRC Les Sources on Sunday.

Tracing

At the start of the day on Tuesday, the CFIA had not received any new reports of sick birds from Quebec, “good news”. Other cases could however be added with the tracing carried out from infected farms.

“There are no clinical signs on these farms, which is still a good thing, but we must keep in mind that the duck is a species that does not necessarily show clinical signs of the disease, explains Dr.^D Racicot. We can still have surprises. »

The fourth infected Quebec farm is a small non-commercial breeding of laying hens, ducks and geese.

In the Shadow of Ontario

When a farm is infected, the CFIA surrounds it with a primary control zone within a radius of at least 10 kilometres, at the heart of which is an infected zone of at least three kilometres. Other farms in these areas are subject to controls to prevent the spread of the virus.

For example, a flock that is free of H5N1, but located within three kilometers of an infected farm, will not be allowed to receive new day-old chicks or ducklings until the infected farm has passed certain stages of decontamination. Farms located within the 10 kilometer zone must obtain permits for certain movements (birds, eggs, meat, etc.).

For the first time on Monday, farms in Quebec found themselves in a control zone created by an outbreak in eastern Ontario, on the Quebec border. Five Quebec production sites under supply management, mostly in the Outaouais, are located in this area from Ontario, the Quebec Poultry Disease Control Team (EQCMA) told us.

In Estrie, six Quebec farms under supply management are located in the control zone of the infected non-commercial farm, around Bury, and another in the Knowlton zone.

These restricted areas are maintained for a “very variable duration, but we are talking about several weeks”, indicates the D^D Racicot.

For the first Ontario farm detected at the end of March, for example, the infected area could be lifted in the coming days. “There would still be a few monitoring steps, but that would at least allow producers in this area to receive day-old birds again and to be able to start their production cycle again. »

Virus sequencing

It is not yet known whether the infected Quebec farms were contaminated by a wild bird or another farm. The answer will come from sequencing done at the CFIA lab in Winnipeg, which will reveal the strain of the virus.

Contamination between two farms has indeed been detected in Ontario and elsewhere in North America, mainly due to the movement of live birds from one site to another. “Poultry is an industry on wheels, so there is a lot of movement,” notes the D^D Racicot.

“The ball is in the court of producers and barnyard owners”, emphasizes the veterinarian, recalling the importance of avoiding “all direct and indirect contact with waterfowl” and of ensuring “full compliance in all time” measures at the entrance to the farms (changes of boots and clothes, hand washing, etc.).