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A new strain of bird flu that has spread to the United States and three Canadian provinces has now been found in poultry flocks on three farms in southern Ontario, according to a federal agency.
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A farm in Woolwich Township north of Kitchener is the last to be quarantined, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said on Wednesday. As with the other two H5N1 strains of bird flu that were confirmed earlier this week, the federal agency monitors traffic on and off the farm and recommends enhanced biosecurity measures for other farms in the area. Avian flu has previously been reported on farms in Zorra Township in western Oxford County and Guelph / Eramosa Township. These are three cases that have been confirmed since the beginning of this week. In all three cases, bird flu was found in herds of turkeys, said a spokesman for the Food and Drug Administration. The new strain of bird flu has also been found in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. But the situation in Canada is not as dire as in the United States, where cases have been confirmed in nearly half of the states since the first turkey outbreak in Indiana in February.
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The U.S. Department of Agriculture says the Indiana outbreak was the first case of commercial poultry in the United States in two years. Since then, the ministry has confirmed cases in nearly 20 states, including Maine, Michigan, Minnesota and New York. Outbreaks appear to be exacerbated in chickens and turkeys, as well as in non-poultry flocks. Some of the companies have more than 500,000 birds in their herd. “(Bird flu) is spreading to wild bird populations around the world and is a major national concern as birds migrate to Canada,” said the Canadian Food and Drug Administration. Last week, the agency confirmed the bird flu in a wild hawk with a red tail in the Waterloo area. Ontario is the largest poultry producer in the country, with much of its industry in southwestern Ontario. Ontario farmers produce more than 200 million chickens a year, while Ontario turkey producers trade between 85 and 90 million pounds of turkeys a year, about 45 percent of Canada’s total.
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The Ontario Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs says bird flu is not a threat to food safety when handled properly and cooked. He also says that bird flu is not a major public health concern for healthy people who do not come into regular contact with infected birds. In 2015, three farms in Oxford County were affected by cases of an H5N2 strain of bird flu. About 80,000 birds, mostly turkeys, went extinct as officials spent months trying to curb the disease. [email protected] Twitter.com/DanatLFPress
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