Canada - Avian flu found in PEI (H5)

[Snowy Owl]

Re: Canada - Avian flu found in PEI (H5)

Mingus,

Do you know exactly where in Ellesmere Island the sigh are, I might by night get one to put in front of my Igloo

 

[hawkeye]

Re: Canada - Avian flu found in PEI (H5)

Chance of Asian bird flu remote
Last updated Jun 19 2006 04:48 PM ADT
CBC News
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is saying the odds that an H5 bird flu found in a gosling in West Prince is the deadly H5N1 strain are extremely remote.

But the CFIA is still recommending that poultry producers on Prince Edward Island keep their livestock in a secure environment with no access to other birds or people.

Four goslings out of a flock of non-commercial flock of 40 kept in a yard near O'Leary were found to have the virus over the weekend, with the first case confirmed Friday.


The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is currently testing the birds to find out the exact strain of flu they carried.

Dr. Jim Clark, who heads up the avian influenza working group for CFIA, said it's not likely to be a virulent strain, but he adds it is good the outbreak was caught early. He said once the virus starts spreading among flocks, the infection can become much stronger.

"The danger would be if these H5 or H7 viruses make their way into chicken or turkey flocks," he said.

"They do have the capacity to change in pathogenicity rather quickly and represent a significant economic and health risk to the animal population of Canada."

Clark said Island poultry producers should be taking precautions to protect their flocks, and that means not letting any domestic fowl run free in the backyard, or anywhere else.

"You should be maintaining your flock under strict biosecurity standards," said Clark.

"If I was a poultry farmer on P.E.I. I would be very careful about who came to and from my property, under what circumstances, and I'd be very vigilant in terms of what was going on within my flock."

It's not clear how many Islanders keep backyard fowl outside biosecure buildings.

Preliminary results from CFIA's testing of the dead goslings are expected by mid-week.

 

[hawkeye]

Re: Canada - Avian flu found in PEI (H5)

A second P.E.I. farm quarantined in wake of bird flu concerns

A second Prince Edward Island farm has been placed under a quarantine order as a precautionary measure as authorities investigate the finding of an H5 avian flu virus in a domestic goose in that province.

An official of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said the move was taken when investigators learned there had been traffic of people and perhaps poultry between the farm where the virus was found and another farm, both of which have small, mixed, free-range backyard flocks.

Dr. Jim Clark said no birds from the second farm have displayed signs of illness and for the time being, authorities have not ordered their destruction.

It will be Tuesday or Wednesday at the earliest before lab testing confirms whether the virus was truly an H5, and whether it was a highly pathogenic form or a virus of low pathogenicity. The Asian H5N1 virus is a high path virus.

The CFIA's National Centre for Foreign Animal Diseases in Winnipeg will also be looking to determine whether the virus is of a North American lineage or is one of the Asian viruses.

''The fact that there are no birds ill there - if the virus has moved - that again would be additional evidence that what we're dealing with here is a low pathogenicity virus,'' the Ottawa-based Clark, national manager of CFIA's avian influenza working group, said in a conference call with journalists. ''There's nothing that's obvious for us that would suggest . . . it is anything except a low pathogenicity virus,'' he said, but added that until testing is done there is no way to be sure.

The goose that tested positive for the virus was from a flock of 40 birds - Embden geese, muscovy ducks and plymouth bard rock chickens - in western P.E.I. Four of 11 geese died Monday. A post-mortem examination of the bird was inconclusive, said Clark, who noted a number of diseases could have caused the organ damage seen.

- The Canadian Press

 

[Bruce]

Re: Canada - Avian flu found in PEI (H5)

So The F stands for food not fowl :smartass:

<table bgcolor="#ffffff" cellpadding="12" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr><td> Governments Respond to Preliminary Finding of Avian Influenza in Prince Edward Island
</td> </tr> <tr> </tr><tr align="left" valign="top"> <td> <table align="left" border="0" cellpadding="8" cellspacing="0"> <tbody><tr> <td class="images">

</td> </tr> </tbody></table> [FONT=verdana,Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Canadian authorities implement disease control measures. First North American response.

As a precautionary measure the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), in collaboration with the Government of Prince Edward Island, has implemented disease control measures in and around a premises in western Prince Edward Island where a young goose in a backyard flock tested positive for an avian influenza virus. It is important to note that this finding does not indicate a new threat to human health.

The virus was determined to be an H5 subtype in testing conducted by the Atlantic Veterinary College laboratory in Charlottetown. The sample has been sent to the National Centre for Foreign Animal Disease (NCFAD) in Winnipeg for further testing to confirm its strain and pathogenicity. The NCFAD is Canada?s national reference laboratory for avian influenza. Testing is being conducted on a priority basis, results will be communicated as soon as they are available. [/FONT]</td></tr></tbody></table>http://www.emergencyemail.org/newsemergency/anmviewer.asp?a=109&z=1

 

[hawkeye]

Re: Canada - Avian flu found in PEI (H5)

Avian flu signs not showing up at second farm

By Ron Ryder
The Guardian

Animals aren?t showing signs of illness at a second Prince County farm quarantined over fears of avian flu, according to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

?If there was any sign at all that there was influenza in these birds they wouldn?t be walking around healthy and happy which is what they are doing today,? said Marc Richard, spokesman for CFIA.

Richard said they are waiting for results from post-mortem testing of a gosling taken from a farm in Huntley before they can determine whether P.E.I.?s outbreak of avian flu is one of the slower-spreading low pathogenic varieties or if it represents the more virulent high-pathogenic strain of the avian influenza virus.

Richard said the virus found in a dead gosling has been confirmed as the H5 virus, but it will be late today or Wednesday at the earliest before specialists can narrow it down to a particular variety.

There are 15 varieties of influenza known to attack birds, of which the H5 and the H7 varieties can develop highly pathogenic forms.

Migratory waterfowl are considered a reservoir of influenza viruses by the World Health Organization although they are resistant to the illness themselves.

Direct or indirect contact, often via droppings, with waterfowl is a common cause of influenza outbreaks in domestic fowl.

Richard said the affected animals on P.E.I. came from a small, free-range flock of 40 chickens, geese and ducks. All the birds were destroyed as soon as avian flu was detected

?You wouldn?t call it a farm,? he said.

?These were a few birds that these people had. The second farm was one where we knew that there had been contact with the infected farm inside the incubation period of the virus.
?

Richard said commercial poultry and egg farmers in Canada have adopted strong containment measures aimed at keeping disease from ever reaching their flocks since an outbreak of bird flu in British Columbia led to the culling of million of birds several years ago.

?Biosecurity has been in place for some time,? he said. ?The first thing they do is to make sure they have their buildings closed off so that there are no openings where wild birds can get in to the flock.

?After that you make sure that rodent control is very strong and that there are disinfecting baths that people have to step in when entering or leaving a barn.

There?s a danger of the virus being tracked into a barn from droppings that may be outside.?

Richard said the poultry industry has adopted a policy of keeping careful track of

traffic between farms so that possible paths of virus spread can be followed and investigated.

 

[HenryN]

Re: Canada - Avian flu found in PEI (H5)

Coomentray at

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/06200601/H5_Canada_Organ_Damage.html

 

[Commonground]

Re: Canada - Avian flu found in PEI (H5)

How can Reuters put this out? "A Canadian Source"?. Oh! OK!!!!
(Posted from Jeremy under Breaking News):

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsAr...archived=False

OTTAWA (Reuters) - A case of bird flu in the eastern Canadian province of Prince Edward Island was not the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain, a Canadian source said on Tuesday.

"The news is good. The dead bird was not carrying the highly pathogenic strain of H5N1," the source told Reuters, declining to say exactly what the dead bird had been suffering from.

 

[Mellie]

Re: Canada - Avian flu found in PEI (H5)

Organ Damage Raises H5N1 Concerns in Canada

Recombinomics Commentary
June 20, 2006

Four of 11 geese died Monday. A post-mortem examination of the bird was inconclusive, said Clark, who noted a number of diseases could have caused the organ damage seen.

The above comments do not appear to rule out high pathogenic avian influenza as the cause of the organ damage in one of the geese that died June 5. Thus, the comments add to the data indicating the Prince Edward Island geese deaths were due to the Qinghai strain of H5N1.

Initial testing confirmed that H5 infected the four geese that died after displaying symptoms on June 4. Symptoms, followed by waterfowl death are hallmarks of the Qinghai strain of H5N1. Low pathogenic H5 isolates do not usually kill waterfowl. Frequently, only a drop in egg production is noted.

The above comments on organ damage are in marked contrast to the OIE description of an H5 positive duck in British Columbia in 2005. That infection was from a low path H5N2 and the description of autopsy results indicated there was no evidence of active infectious disease

The suspect bird was a 40-day-old meat duck collected at processing. The bird was in excellent body condition with submitting criteria of dermatitis. No other visible lesions and no indication of any active disease process were observed on post-mortem examination.

Thus, there were four geese that had symptoms of H5N1 infection on Prince Edward Island. One of the birds was tested and was positive for H5 and the autopsy identified organ damage consistent with an H5N1 infection.

News is expected today or tomorrow from the National Labs in Winnipeg. Sequence data is expected, which will determine if the H5N1 cleavage site is present and additional sequence data can easily distinguish between North America and Qinghai polymorphisms.

At this time, the released information clearly points toward the H5N1 Qinghai strain of bird flu.

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/06200601/H5_Canada_Organ_Damage.html

 

[Bruce]

Re: Canada - Avian flu found in PEI (H5)

How can Reuters put this out? "A Canadian Source"?. Oh! OK!!!!
(Posted from Jeremy under Breaking News):

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsAr...archived=False

OTTAWA (Reuters) - A case of bird flu in the eastern Canadian province of Prince Edward Island was not the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain, a Canadian source said on Tuesday.

"The news is good. The dead bird was not carrying the highly pathogenic strain of H5N1," the source told Reuters, declining to say exactly what the dead bird had been suffering from.

LoL Brobaly the Source was some Force

 

[HenryN]

Re: Canada - Avian flu found in PEI (H5)

Commentary at

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/06210601/H5_Winnipeg_Failure.html

 

[Sally Furniss]

Re: Canada - Avian flu found in PEI (H5)

June 21, 2006

The fact that the H5 virus was not detected in testing at the Winnipeg lab, along with the absence of clinical signs of disease in the birds depopulated in the flock, indicates that only a very small amount of low pathogenicity virus may have been present in the index bird. A finding of incidental contamination in the index bird would not be unexpected given that it spent time out of doors and other birds on the farm were confirmed to have co-mingled with wild migratory birds which commonly carry AI viruses.


The above comments from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency provide additional evidence that the dead geese on Prince Edward Island (PEI) were killed by the Qinghai strain of H5N1. Since H5 was detected in the only dead bird tested, the chance that the infection was incidental is low.

The four dead birds had classical H5N1 symptoms. The H5 was detected in a free range backyard goose, which is more likely to interact with wild migratory birds, as indicated above. The four geese were said to be "walking oddly" on Sunday, June 4, another classical symptom of H5N1 infection. All four birds were found dead the next morning. Rapid death is another classical sign of H5N1 infection. The autopsied dead goose also had organ damage, which was also consistent with H5N1 infection.

The only aspect of the goose that was not consistent with the Qingahi strain of H5N1 was the delay in sending the sample to Winnipeg for sequencing and sero-typing. Since the announcement on Friday, June 16 indicated that H5 had been confirmed, the sample must have been positive at least twice prior to shipment. The long delay between death on June 5 and announcement of the H5 result on June 16 raises concerns over the handling of the sample, including sample degradation.

Since the four dead birds had a number of symptoms consistent with Qinghai H5N1 infection, it is unclear why only one of the dead birds was tested. Determining the sequence of the HA cleavage site is routine, so it is unclear why that test was not be done locally on PEI. The Qinghai strain of H5N1 is quite distinctive, so a small amount of sequence data across any of the eight gene segments would have provided conclusive data on the relationship between the H5 in the dead goose, and the Qinghai stain of H5N1.

The failure to find spread of the H5 provided little data on the relationship to the Qinghai strain. Since symptoms were observed Sunday and the geese were dead Monday morning, the interactions with other birds whie the infected geese were contagious may have been limited. Since all four birds developed symptoms and died at the same time, a common source was likely. However, if the common source was wild birds, they may have flown away and limited exposure of the other birds on the farm.

The failure of Winnipeg to detect the H5, which had been confirmed on PEI, is cause for concern. The testing of only one goose and delay in testing and/or shipping of samples on PEI indicates pandemic H5N1 bird flu testing in Canada is inadequate.

 

[hawkeye]

Re: Canada - Avian flu found in PEI (H5)

It can't really surprise anyone that they aren't following proper protocol, let alone announcing lab results with any merit. What benefit is there to finding H5N1?? Export sanctions?

-hawkeye

 

[Mingus]

Re: Canada - Avian flu found in PEI (H5)

What benefit is there to finding H5N1?? Export sanctions?

Pushing the canadian gov to invest more in the canadian agency...

 

[HenryN]

Re: Canada - Avian flu found in PEI (H5)

Commentary at

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/06210603/H5_PCR_PEI.html

 

[Sally Furniss]

PCR Insert Contains Key H5 Sequence from Dead PEI Goose

PCR Insert Contains Key H5 Sequence from Dead PEI Goose

PCR Insert Contains Key H5 Sequence from Dead PEI Goose

Recombinomics Commentary
June 21, 2006

Using polymerase chain reaction or PCR testing, the scientists searched for tiny bits of genetic material from flu viruses. They spotted enough to declare that they had found an influenza A virus of the H5 subtype.

`They found a little piece that matched the H5, enough of a little piece to say it's H5. However, they can't tell if the virus is alive or not,'' Bosse says.

But there wasn't sufficient material to tell if it was highly pathogenic or a virus of low pathogenicity, or what the neuraminidase _ the N in a flu virus's name _ subtype was.

The above description of testing on Prince Edward Island raises questions about the insert generated in the PCR test as well as the sequence of the insert. The tiny bits of genetic information described above are primers. The primers bind to the genetic information of the virus, and then the polymerase reaction fills in the gap between the primers using the virus RNA as a template. Thus, the insert contains the sequence of the virus and it can be used to identify the viral sequence between the primers.

This insert was specific for H5, so it almost certainly included the HA cleavage site. The sequence of the HA cleavage site is diagnostic for high pathogenic avian influence (HPAI) or low pathogenic avian influenza (LPAI). Moreover, the GERRRKKR sequence at the cleavage site would indicate that the H5 was from the H5N1 Qinghai strain.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has maintained that the H5 in the dead goose was an incidental finding and the goose died of unknown causes. The key test of this hypothesis is the sequence of the HA cleavage site. If it has multiple basic amino acids, it is HPAI like the Qinghai strain of H5N1. If the multi-basic amino acids are missing, then it is LPAI bird flu, as suggested.

The isolation of H5 virus is unlikely because the samples at Winnipeg have degraded and are now PCR negative. In view of the state of the material in Winnipeg, the sequence of the insert created on Prince Edward Island should be released. This sequences would answer to key questions, is the H5 from HPAI and is it from the Qinghai strain of H5N1.

 

[chicken little]

Re: Canada - Avian flu found in PEI (H5)

If they only found a very small degree of virus in the goose and the goose DIED,would that not suggest that the virus is high path? Or could a goose lightly infected with low path actually die from it?

 

[Mingus]

Re: Canada - Avian flu found in PEI (H5)

The goose probably died of something else. This strain was there just because around 5% to 15% of wild birds carry some strain of any kind (from data coming from previous wild bird survey in canada and alaska).

A highly pathogenic H5N1 would probably haved already kill all the chicken around theses farms.

Dr.Niman is seeking for proof of recombination wich are potential "little part of the asian H5N1" inside of a other north-american strain.

If the agency lie, we will know it fast enough

 

[HenryN]

Re: Canada - Avian flu found in PEI (H5)

The goose probably died of something else. This strain was there just because around 5% to 15% of wild birds carry some strain of any kind (from data coming from previous wild bird survey in canada and alaska).

A highly pathogenic H5N1 would probably haved already kill all the chicken around theses farms.

Dr.Niman is seeking for proof of recombination wich are potential "little part of the asian H5N1" inside of a other north-american strain.

If the agency lie, we will know it fast enough

No, I believe the deaths were from Qingahi H5N1, not an American recombinant.

 

[Mingus]

Re: Canada - Avian flu found in PEI (H5)

Now or late ,we will see...

 

[Mingus]

Re: Canada - Avian flu found in PEI (H5)

If this is the Quingai strain, outbreak will pop up all over the atlantic provinces and in eastern Québec very soon.

In Maine maybe also... time will tell.