Canada: No bans expected from Newfoundland avian flu outbreak
Canada
Published Dec 23, 2021
Tridge summary
Neither federal nor international animal health officials expect to see import bans imposed on Canadian poultry coming out of an avian flu outbreak at a farm on Newfoundland’s Avalon Peninsula. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency on Wednesday reported a confirmed outbreak of a highly-pathogenic (‘high-path’) strain of H5N1 avian influenza at an exhibition farm in the province’s southeast. It marks Canada’s first high-path outbreak since 2015.
Original content
The exhibition farm houses multiple species of birds and other animals and does not produce birds for sale, CFIA said. Thus, it’s considered “non-poultry” by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE). Ontario’s Feather Board Command Centre, an industry agency that tracks both domestic and international bird disease outbreaks, said Wednesday the Newfoundland farm’s stock had included chickens, turkeys, emus, geese, ducks, guinea fowl and peafowl. According to the report filed with the OIE, the flu strain killed 360 birds on the farm and another 59 were destroyed. The farm is in a region the Newfoundland and Labrador government promotes as the “Seabird Capital of North America,” with “tens of thousands of migrating seabirds perched almost within arm’s length.” Analysis shows the virus on the farm lines up genetically with the “Eurasian lineage” of high-path H5N1 that’s been circulating in poultry and wild birds in Europe and Asia this year, the OIE said in its report Wednesday. ...
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