With 8.7 m of dead birds, the BC farmers evaluate the aviarian influential toll and care about what is next
There is a relief window for the farmers of the British Columbia with the devastating waves of avian influence, leaving them to evaluate the balance of the outbreaks that last more than three years that have seen millions of birds knocked down in hundreds of farms.
Farmers and scientists also worry what will bring the next migration of wild birds.
Some farmers have moved their operations outside the British Columbia British Fraser Valley or have come out of the industry all the highly pathogenic H5N1 aviary influenza began to circulate, said the farmer Ray Nickel.
Nickel, who manages a farm in Abbotsford in the Valley Fraser, was forced to break down 60,000 chickens in the autumn of 2022 due to the disease. He said that his flock of about 9,000 turkeys on another farm was euthanous in 2023.
About 80 BC poultry farms have experimented with aviatory influence since mid -October, according to the BC Poury Association.
“It is only discouraging and the uncertainty about what is happening around you weighs on you,” said Nickel of the virus.
“We had recurring events, in particular in autumn, and the amount of anxiety and stress that go to producers when this is happening is significant”.
“Infection protocols” have been imposed on BC Slocks 239 times since the first case was detected in the province in April 2022, but only six rooms are currently infected on April 1, according to the Canadian Food Isspection Agency (CFIA).
More than 8.7 million commercial birds and courtyard were demolished in the province, over half of the national budget of 14.5 million.
The agency declared in January that the worldwide scale of avian influence is “unprecedented and continues to have significant impacts on the Canadian poultry industry”. But there have been no new infections reported in BC since 11 January.
Nickel, who is also director of the BC Chicken Marketing Board, said that farmers at the moment feel “raised”, but there is a basic concern for the virus that persists.
Farmers are diligent about security measures, but researchers say that it is currently impossible to know exactly how a virus is transmitted to flocks.
Troy Bourque, a specialist of veterinary operations for the CFIA, said that Canada detected for the first time the highly pathogenic aviatory influence in 2021 and has since crossed six waves of outbreaks.
“They are both in spring and autumn during the migration season. In the last two years, in particular in BC, we have seen larger outbreaks in autumn rather than in spring,” he said, noting that the Fraser Valley had been hit hard.
Bourque, the head of planning for the response to the avian influence epidemic, said that it is too early to say how the spring migration of this year will have an impact on the poultry.
“The challenge is highly pathogenic aviatory influence is circulating in the population of wildlife, and therefore we do not have a good idea of what the level of the virus in those migratory birds is,” he said.
The head veterinary of BC Teresa Burns has said that preliminary research suggests that autumn migration periods are worse than spring because birds land and spend more time in the Fraser Valley. They seem to be bypass the region in the spring, he said.
“Every autumn, we had a rather serious outbreak, but in reality we were lucky to have no infections in the spring last year, even if the previous year, there were some infections in the spring period.”
Burns said that all changed influences and the H5n1 strain that emerged in 2021 is “significantly worse than other strains that we have historically had”.
He said hope is that wild birds develop more immunity and the virus moves in a less harmful strain.
Very rare human transmission
Pandemic researchers fear that avian influenza may mutter in a widespread human disease and bourque has noticed that human transmission is “always a concern because these viruses can infect mammals, including humans, which is another reason why we do not want it in our population of domestic birds – because it is a threat to man”.
However, the transmission from person to person of H5n1 is considered very rare.
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Dr. Brian Conway with the Vancouver infectious diseases center states that there is no reason to panic for concerns about the increase in cases of avian influenza.
Canada reported its first human case acquired at the national level of bird influence on November 9, 2024. The teenager patient fell well and spent two months in a BC hospital. It was discharged in January and the authorities said they don’t know how it was infected.
The federal government announced in February that he had purchased 500,000 doses of bird’s flu vaccine as a proactive measure, indicating a guide that states that high -risk people, such as agricultural workers exposed to infected animals, should be priority for shooting.
A 13 -year -old BC girl admitted to the hospital who is believed to be the first person to acquire the avian influence of H5n1 in Canada is now for intensive care and breathing alone. The source of his infection remains unknown, but is no longer contagious.
Bourque said that “if the poultry is managed correctly, it is safe. There is no risk for avian influence by eating poultry or eggs”.
He said the industry is very focused on biosyphicity to prevent the introduction of the virus to the flocks. But when it happens, the CFIA follows a rigorous protocol.
Farmers are in charge of denouncing the suspicion of avian influenza in the flocks at Cfia. Bourque said that the agency will quarantine the farm while administering diagnostic tests. So if the tests are positive, the animals are ordered to be demolished.
The process did not end after the birds were killed. Bourque stated that the completion of the disposal triggers the surveillance of the epidemic of the surrounding 10 kilometers – also indicated as a control area – to ensure that the virus has not spread.
“The surveillance of the epidemic is a minimum of 28 days,” he said. “So, it must be without disease for at least 28 days before that area can go down.”
“Nobody wants this”
The CFIA pays the market value for any animal that is demolished, to encourage farmers to report outbreaks.
“It is quite expensive, but I think it is important to understand that we do it to maintain that disease outside our domestic flock, because the disease itself is very expensive. Our export of poultry is an industry of billions of dollars a year,” said Bourque.
Farmers must pay the cost of cleaning and disinfection and “any production loss,” he said.
Nickel said it is one of the reasons why the last three years have been emotionally and, often, financially taxed.
He said that when he was forced to eutanize his flock in 2022, disinfection cost him more than $ 2,000. Then there are agricultural workers who are forced to resist when an infection is detected.
“It’s not fun. Nobody wants it,” he said.
