As expected, the virus found in an RM of Rockwood turkey-breeding operation is a low pathogenic variety of avian influenza. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency announced early Thursday afternoon that it has confirmed the virus is an H5N2 virus.

The infected farm remains under quarantine. The CFIA has also placed two other poultry farms and one hatchery under quarantine due to their contact with the infected operation.

H5N2 is not completely new to Canada according to Dr. Wayne Lees, Chief Veterinary Officer for the province.

"This was the virus that was found in British Colombia in some ducks back in 2005 and again in BC in some turkeys in 2009. This is not really a new occurrence. We've also found this virus in our wild bird testing. We expect it to be reasonably ubiquitous," says Lees. "This is the good news, that we've found the virus. We expect things will go very well from here on in."

It's expected the discovery of the virus will not have any effect on trade.

"The results have been reported up to the OIE, and that goes to our international trading partners. So far we've seen no response from them. At the moment, it's really seen as a one farm, isolated event. I think folks are waiting to hear about our investigation and what we find," says Dr. Rick James-Davies, regional director with the CFIA.

Officials have not done any testing at the three newly-quarantined sites. James-Davies says they chose to quarantine these operations based on factors such as movement of birds, movement of eggs and movement of workers.

"Quarantining is really just a way of us formally asking the producer to sit tight for a while. We need to do a little more work and figure out what's going on here. It could possibly lead to testing on some of those other farms. Further questioning of the producer and understanding of how his product has moved could also mean no further testing," says James-Davies. "We've seen no clinical illness on any other farms."

All eight thousand birds at the original operation will be humanely destroyed within the next few days. The producer will be compensated fairly.

"Under the Health of Animals Act he's compensated for birds ordered destroyed. There's an economic model that looks at value of the birds, input costs and stage of production. So we'll have our folks sitting down with the producer and his records and establishing that - essentially fair market value for his birds," says James-Davies.

The H5N2 discovery comes just weeks after the province announced its premises identification program.

"The premises ID system has worked extremely well. Even though we had just launched it, we had all of our turkey producers already registered and located," says Lees. "We've been very pleased with how well the system has worked. This was an excellent test."

Dr. Joel Kettner, the province's Chief Public Health Officer, emphasizes the public does not need to worry about the discovery of the virus.

"It's okay to eat turkey. It's okay to work in places where turkey and other poultry may exist and this doesn't pose an increased risk for any spread in public settings," says Kettner. "This H5N2 confirmation is not surprising. We didn't expect this to be the Asian H5N1 and we're pleased that it's not."

~ Thursday, November 25, 2010 ~