Avian flu appeared in British Columbia chickens last week, but in a less dangerous form than was found in Asia earlier this month.
The H7N virus found in a Masqui, B.C., broiler breeder chicken flock last week on Loewen Acres Farm is a mild version of the one that recently killed 22 people as well as birds in Asia.
“We are dealing with a low-pathogenic strain of the virus,” said Cornelius Kiley of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
The Canadian bug only kills a portion of a chicken flock and does so over time, said Kiley.
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In contrast, the high-pathogenic strain kills the majority of a flock in 24-48 hours, he said.
About 2,000 of the B.C. birds died as a result of the infection, CFIA said, while 16,000 more were killed using carbon dioxide gas and their carcasses added to a manure compost on the farm.
Millions of birds have been destroyed in Asia because of fear that H5N1 could mutate.
The Asian bird flu virus may have swapped genetic information with human flu viruses, and could spread to more humans, according to reports from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
The FAO and the world animal health group, the OIE, caution that not all of the testing of this hypothesis meets standards and the reports of the virus infecting people and pigs may not be accurate.
The World Health Organization’s Collaborating Laboratory on Animal Influenza in Hong Kong showed no evidence of the presence of the H5N1 virus in Asian swine.
Cross species contamination “is not at all an issue in this case,” said Kiley.
Singapore, South Korea, China, Japan, Hong Kong and Mexico have all placed bans on Canadian poultry or poultry products. About seven percent of Canada’s poultry products are exported to the United States, which had it own problems with avian flu last week in the U.S. northeast and Texas.
In Texas, the strain of the bug can kill many birds quickly, but, like the B.C. virus, U.S. authorities say it has a small risk to humans.
Dr. Andrew Larder of the Fraser Valley regional health authority said the infected flock and the virus it carried pose no threat to humans not in direct contact with the live birds and only limited threat to the farm workers who handled the birds. Five of those who worked with the birds had cold or flu-like symptoms. As of Feb. 23, the health authority could not say whether the human illnesses were a direct result of the avian virus or seasonal human infections.
CFIA is still working to identify the exact form of the avian virus found in the Masqui flock, but officials said it is a far weaker strain than the H7 virus that killed one person and made 82 ill in the Netherlands last year.
None of the poultry from the infected flock has entered the food chain. The CFIA suspects the source of the infection will prove to be wild ducks.
Four outbreaks of the H7 strain have been reported in Canada since 1975.
So far this year, Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Texas have all reported bird flu cases, but none of the virulent type that have affected Asia.
