Form of avian flu found in B.C. Water Shed

http://CTV.ca News Staff A form of avian flu has been found in birds in British Columbia. This comes a day after birds were found carrying a strain of the disease in Quebec and Manitoba. Officials in B.C. say 14 ducks have tested strongly positive for the H5 virus. Samples have now been sent to the National Centre for Foreign Animal Disease in Winnipeg. The tests in Winnipeg will try to determine if the virus is the more dangerous H5N1 strain of the so-called bird flu, which is the deadly strain found in parts of Asia. "I can tell you right off the top, there's no question we were surprised by the large number of H5 samples,'' British Columbia's Chief Veterinarian Dr. Ron Lewis told a teleconference call from Victoria. "But having said that, we've never tested birds in this flyway before, so we really don't have any idea whether this is a normal factor or whether these are increased numbers or whether they're decreased numbers. It is just a snapshot surveillance at one particular point in time.'' Samples were taken from 700 ducks in the central Interior of British Columbia in August. Of those, 174 tests came back positive, with 14 as strongly positive. Seventy-five of those samples were weak or slightly positive, and are being tested again. Six provinces are testing wild waterfowl. Dr. Lewis said none of the B.C. birds is sick or associated with commercial poultry operations. "There is no evidence of any disease in commercial poultry, no evidence of any disease in waterfowl, and certainly no evidence of any disease in people handling these waterfowl,'' he said. "We fully anticipate that when additional testing is done, these samples will prove to be another strain apart from the H5N1 that everybody is so very much aware of.'' In 2004, an outbreak of a form of avian flu in British Columbia forced the slaughter of 17 million birds. In the end, only three million birds were found to have had the disease. After waterfowl were discovered carrying the H5 strain of the virus in Quebec and Manitoba officials from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said there was no reason to panic. "The evidence we have observed strongly indicates that these healthy birds were not infected with the same virus that is currently present in Asia," Jim Clark of the CFIA told a news conference on Monday. Clark said there are nine different subtypes of the H5 virus, and because of that he said "the chance of it being H5N1 are likely fairly remote." The H5N1 strain of the virus is behind the growing avian flu problem in Asia, where more than 60 people have died of H5N1 infections picked up from poultry. Health officials in Winnipeg will also be running tests on the birds found in Quebec and Manitoba, and those results won't be known until later this week. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency says it's releasing information about the birds to make sure that there's no misinformation and to prevent panic in the Canadian public. The agency also wants to reassure trade partners, especially the United States, so they won't stop buying Canadian poultry. Last month, Australia lifted a ban on imports of live birds from Canada after Ottawa provided evidence the country was free of H5N1. Australia imposed the ban after three racing pigeons imported from Canada tested positive for bird flu antibodies. The birds were later destroyed. Thousands of birds have been tested for the disease in Canada. Even if they are carrying the H5N1 virus, it does not mean they are related to the viruses behind the outbreaks in Southeast Asia. So far, the outbreaks in Asia have infected 121 people in Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Cambodia. The strain has been heading through Europe as migrating fowl fly west, and there are fears it could mutate into a virus easily spreading among humans creating a global pandemic.