Avian flu continues to be found outside the Matsqui area of the Fraser River Valley as federal officials move from a campaign of confinement to one of controlled regional slaughter.
Birds in 16 infected barns in the Abbotsford, B.C., area have been killed and are being incinerated at a decommissioned mine site.
Four more infected farms are being “depopulated” and six backyard chicken flocks in the area are confirmed infected and will also be destroyed, said Cornelius Kiley of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
Kiley heads the operation to slaughter the 19 million poultry that inhabit B.C.’s lower mainland, a decision made after a diseased commercial flock in Matsqui Feb. 19 spread the illness to other flocks in the region. The inspection agency believes humans spread the disease through travel between farms by workers, owners, feed suppliers and technicians.
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“We are placing strict controls on that movement today and expect everyone involved in this industry to understand why they need to fully support the measures,” he said in an April 8 news conference in Abbotsford.
All poultry flocks in the 200-kilometre-long valley stretching from Hope to Vancouver, estimated to be as much 15 percent of Canada’s poultry, will be tested prior to slaughter.
Birds testing negative will be processed and marketed into the human food system. Positive cases will be composted and burned. The litter will be treated with disinfectant.
Once facilities are cleaned and treated, sentinel birds will be placed in the barns for a time and then tested for the avian flu. Only after these birds are given a clean bill of health may the barns be restocked.
CFIA said all poultry sold from the region must be accompanied by a federal permit stating that is free of avian influenza. That will allow hundreds of tonnes of poultry already in freezer facilities to be sold across Canada.
No live poultry can be brought into the control area and all hatcheries have been ordered closed. Provincial officials are still grappling with the issue of carcass disposal. One proposal is to burn them in a Burnaby, B.C., waste incinerator that also generates electricity.
