What would happen if avian influenza struck a chicken barn and authorities had to scramble to stomp out the infection?
Federal and provincial agencies continue to run exercises to test that scenario.
A recent lockdown and extermination of a layer hen egg barn near Winnipeg gave government officials and livestock industry people a chance to test their emergency response system and they were mostly satisfied with the result.
“All the chickens died and most of the computers worked,” said Manitoba Agriculture veterinarian Terry Whiting.
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But for Whiting and other officials, the word “most” isn’t good enough. They will focus on ensuring that farmers and agencies all have computer and information systems that can speak to each other.
Problems arose during the practice drill because of analog phone lines into some farm record offices, while digital systems are in place elsewhere.
“They had analog dial-up systems and there isn’t an analog phone in Winnipeg any more,” said Whiting.
“We didn’t anticipate that, but that’s why we do these tests.”
Officials weren’t able to get into all of the farm’s records because of the difference in systems.
Other information technology worked almost perfectly. Federal and provincial veterinary officials have established a war room at the University of Manitoba to co-ordinate any real disease outbreak that occurs, and this exercise allowed it to be tested.
“We wanted to test if everybody could come to one spot, plug in their computers and make it work,” said Whiting.
It did.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency also discovered that its extermination technology is improving. To control a livestock disease outbreak in an infected place, workers need to be able to quickly kill all the animals there.
That’s difficult, because the best and fastest method relies on liquid carbon dioxide being turned into gas. When the carbon dioxide is gasified it sucks much of the heat out of the air, and that can cause the equipment to freeze.
But this time the equipment worked well and all the chickens were dead within seven minutes.
Karen Armstrong, assistant manager of the Manitoba Chicken Producers, said a number of her organization’s staff observed the disease outbreak control simulation and were impressed.
“If there ever was an infected premises, we have a much better understanding of how CFIA works on the farm,” said Armstrong.
