USDA to Step up Wild Fowl Testing for Bird Flu
Date: 27-Oct-05
Country: USA
Author: Christopher Doering
The H5N1 strain of avian influenza, which can be lethal to humans, was found in poultry in Asia before moving into Romania, Turkey, Greece and Russia in recent weeks. No cases have been found in the United States.
The United States is the world's largest producer and exporter of poultry meat, with chicken, turkey and duck production valued at about $23 billion annually.
The USDA is already testing some chicken flocks on American farms as well as migratory birds in Alaska to detect bird flu.
The US government said it is planning more extensive testing in 2006 in the flyways where wild birds, believed to be the primary carrier of the disease, enter the United States. Officials did not say how many birds would be tested or where.
Ron DeHaven, head of the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, said importers of US poultry products could be tempted to halt purchases if the H5N1 strain was found in wild birds in the United States.
While detection of the H5N1 virus in migratory birds would be a good early warming signal, it does not show if the disease has spread to commercial poultry farms, he told reporters at a briefing on the US government's surveillance system.
"There would be no indication at all that we have the virus in commercial poultry and therefore no substantive basis to impose trade restrictions on poultry and poultry products from the United States," said DeHaven.
The OIE, the international animal health agency, has said trade restrictions should not be put in place if the disease is found in an area separate from the commercial poultry industry, such as migratory fowl.
The United States will export about 5.4 billion pounds of chicken meat in 2005, according to USDA estimates.
To help detect the highly transmissible form of bird flu, the USDA said it has more than 40,000 private veterinarians across the nation watching for the disease in local fowl.
The USDA has already taken other precautions against the disease, including banning imports of live birds and eggs from infected countries and requiring all imported birds to be quarantined and tested for the virus.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, properly cooked poultry poses no risk to human health.
Only two cases of humans contracting the disease from consuming chicken products have occurred, both in Asia, said Dick Raymond, USDA's undersecretary for food safety. Both infections are believed to have occurred through eating undercooked meat or raw blood of the fowl, he said.
"Theoretically, we are concerned about eating raw poultry from diseased birds," said Raymond. But "the chance of that food ever entering the food chain is pretty low," he added.
Americans should not hesitate to prepare a turkey for a traditional Thanksgiving holiday meal next month, he said.
The USDA also said it has ready a supply of bird flu vaccine for poultry that could be used to create a buffer zone if the disease is ever found in the United States.
Last year, five US states had an outbreak of a mild strain of bird flu, which was contained by destroying several thousand chickens.
