Testing began Oct. 5 to check Saskatchewan’s commercial poultry flocks for avian influenza.
Canadian Food Inspection Agency spokesperson Sandra Stephens said the destruction and burial of the 50,000 hens at Pedigree Poultry near Regina Beach, Sask., which tested positive for highly pathogenic H7N3 avian influenza, was completed late last week.
Cleaning and disinfection of the broiler breeder barns will follow and the agency is broadening its surveillance to check for the influenza in other flocks.
Blood tests will be performed in egg, chicken and turkey barns. Stephens said an epidemiologist would determine a statistically valid number of barns to test.
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Low pathogen viruses can circulate within flocks for some time before becoming highly pathogenic. As low pathogens they can cause production losses, but often producers aren’t aware that anything is wrong, Stephens said.
Backyard flocks within 10 kilometres of Pedigree Poultry have all tested negative.
“There wasn’t any local spread,” Stephens said. “We did get this very early.”
In addition to catching other potential infections, the widespread testing will help Canada’s industry resume trade.
Several countries banned the import of birds and poultry products from either Saskatchewan or Canada after the positive case was confirmed Sept. 27.
“We have to demonstrate to our trading partners that we have done all we can,” Stephens said.
The United States implemented a 48 hour ban on the import of wild birds killed by American hunters in Saskatchewan. Several thousand birds were taken to landfills or donated to food banks before the ban was lifted.
A University of Regina marketing professor criticized the agency for waiting four days to notify the public after imposing the quarantine at Pedigree Poultry.
Stephens told reporters at the initial news conference announcing the positive test that the farm was immediately quarantined based on clinical signs. Samples were sent to Prairie Diagnostic Services in Saskatoon and the National Centre for Foreign Animal Disease in Winnipeg.
“We do need to realize that there are other diseases that can cause significant mortality in poultry in very short periods of time so we really did need a laboratory diagnosis,” she said.
A day after the quarantine was imposed, the agency learned the disease was avian influenza and that it was not the H5 strain associated with human deaths in Asia.
Stephens said Oct. 5 that the agency’s role is to control disease in animals.
Provincial agriculture, environment and health officials were all notified along with the industry, she added.
Although the owner of Pedigree Poultry will be compensated for the market value of the destroyed birds, he is responsible for the $20,000 cost of disinfecting the barns.
In a report published in a national newspaper last week, a spokesperson for the operation said the family needed immediate financial support to complete that process.
Clinton Monchuk, chief executive officer of Chicken Farmers of Saskatchewan and co-chair of the industry’s emergency management team, said the provincial poultry industry would help.
Stephens said the virus is fragile and destroyed easily by most disinfectants.
Once the cleaning is complete, the agency will inspect the premises and make a decision about when the barns can again house birds.
