Test shows bird flu in hens
Posted on Wednesday, June 11, 2008
A sample taken last week from a hen flock destroyed near West Fork tested positive for avian influenza in the laboratory, the Arkansas Livestock and Poultry Commission said Monday
About 15, 000 breeder hens owned by Springdale-based Tyson Foods Inc. were killed and buried last week after tests showed some had developed antibodies connected with a mild form of avian influenza, or bird flu.
A new “virus isolation” test — in which technicians try to grow the virus from a sample — confirmed the H 7 N 3 virus was still alive in at least one of the sampled birds.
“We have always operated under a priority one, just like it was a worst-case scenario. Nothing really has changed [with the new test results ],” Jon S. Fitch, executive director of the Arkansas Livestock and Poultry Commission, said Tuesday.
“I am very confident that this is going to end up being an isolated incident,” Fitch said, noting that animal inspectors would scour the immediate area in the coming weeks for smaller flocks to test.
The Livestock and Poultry Commission has set a 6. 2-mile quarantine radius around the farm on County Road 230 about four miles northwest of Devil’s Den State Park in Washington County.
Bird flu had not been detected in Arkansas poultry since 1995, according to the Center of Excellence for Poultry Science at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. State investigators tested birds on six area poultry farms, but no other samples showed signs of the virus.
Unlike the H 5 N 1 strain, which has caused 241 human deaths worldwide, the H 7 N 3 virus is not considered very dangerous to people.
Still, there is some concern any time an H 7 strain is discovered.
“There’s only two types of avian flu that evolve into this high pathogenic form, and that is H 5 and H 7,” said Richard Webby, director of the Memphis-based World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Studies on the Ecology of Influenza Viruses in Lower Animals and Birds.
“For human health, it is not really any concern,” Webby said, but “from the side of agriculture, yes, H 5 and H 7 is more of a concern.”
On Monday, federal game officials killed nine migratory birds at a nearby pond and sampled them for the disease, according to the U. S. Department of Agriculture. Poultry experts speculated the disease was carried to Northwest Arkansas by migratory birds.
“It is a pretty routine, established procedure in an area where an avian influenza strain has been either identified or suspected,” said Carol Bannerman, public affairs spokesman for Wildlife Services at the USDA.
Five Canada geese — most likely resident to the area — were harvested for the samples. Four wood ducks met the same fate. The samples were taken to the National Veterinary Services Laboratories in Ames, Iowa. Results could be available late this week.
Bannerman said it isn’t likely that any more waterfowl will be tested.
Chicken testing within the quarantined area may take up to three weeks. State livestock inspectors will comb the quarantine area, road by road, searching for smaller chicken flocks that have gone undetected.
“Our plan is to try to find every backyard flock within the area. It’s not going to be an easy task,” Fitch said.
After the discovery of the avian influenza antibodies in the Tyson flock last week, Russia placed a 90-day ban on poultry imports from Arkansas.
Japan implemented a temporary ban, as well. A spokesman at the Japanese Embassy in Washington said Tuesday the decision to resume Arkansas poultry imports would be made in Tokyo, and she didn’t know when that could happen.
Over the weekend, a virulent H 5 N 1 strain was detected at a Hong Kong market. About 2, 700 birds were culled to stop the disease. The H 5 N 1 strain of bird flu has never been found in North America. Webby said the migratory routes of birds from Europe and Asia, where H 5 N 1 occurs, overlap some North American routes in Alaska. But for some reason, the birds don’t readily transmit the disease there. The threat of a global highly pathogenic bird flu pandemic still exists, Webby said. However, the H 5 N 1 virus, which kills most of the people it infects, likely needs several more mutations to easily pass between humans, he said. Shares of Tyson Foods fell 39 cents, or 2. 49 percent, to close Tuesday at $ 15. 28 on the New York Stock Exchange.
To contact this reporter: dirvin@arkansasonline. com
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