An animal testing facility that plays a critical role in protecting British Columbia producers has been slowly restarting its services after being forced to close last year due to flooding.
Although staff have returned to the Animal Health Centre in Abbotsford, laboratory equipment must be checked and verified because the facility was shut down for several months, said acting director Tomy Joseph.
“And we had to ensure the biosafety of those containments are all in place and appropriate waste disposal options are also in place, so that’s why it’s taking a little bit of time for us to restart.”
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Testing for avian influenza has resumed at a time when several outbreaks have occurred across the province, he said. A provincial order was recently issued requiring commercial poultry farmers and anyone with more than 100 birds to keep their flocks inside.
Joseph did not have an estimate of the cost of the flood damage to the centre. The B.C. government is examining the services provided by the facility, Agriculture and Food Minister Lana Popham said in a provincial statement.
“As we continue to work on getting everything back up and running, we’ll be looking at both short-term and long-term options for how we can not only restore but improve upon the services we offer at our plant and Animal Health Centre labs.”
Flooding and landslides forced B.C. to declare a state of emergency Nov. 17. More than 1,100 farms were under evacuation order or alert due to the flooding, which killed thousands of animals ranging from dairy cows to poultry.
The disaster also severed much of the province’s road and rail links, cutting off farmers from feed and veterinary care and preventing them from getting their goods to consumers. Some of the worst flooding took place in the Sumas Prairie region and nearby Abbotsford.
The centre’s basement was flooded, damaging mechanical systems and forcing the building’s closure Nov.16, said Joseph. It meant shutting down one of the leading veterinary facilities in Western Canada, affecting things such as disease testing of livestock and testing of milk supplies.
Some staff were allowed back inside to collect their workstations so they could do tasks such as administration from home, he said. Samples had to be rerouted to other laboratories in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario, increasing the response time for testing, he added.
The centre began accepting blood, serum and milk samples for serotology on March 21, with testing involving histology, or the study of tissues, and parasitology resuming in mid-April. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency recertified the centre’s foreign animal disease laboratory in late April.
The centre has resumed testing for illnesses such as African swine fever as well as avian influenza, said the provincial statement. Testing has also been restarted at B.C.’s Plant Health Laboratory, which provides diagnoses for things such as illnesses and pests affecting crops grown in the province, it said.
“The return of these services means testing can be conducted close to B.C.’s agriculture communities in the Okanagan and Fraser Valley, ensuring British Columbian farmers, veterinarians and medical professionals receive results quicker than samples sent out of province, helping to reduce response time in emergencies.”
Testing involving bacteriology is also being restarted at the Animal Health Centre, said Joseph. “But the major services — the necropsy service and molecular diagnostics — we are hoping that those will be resumed in the next few weeks.”
