Risk low, but poultry industry wary of avian flu possibilities

When Jane Viste, public health information officer for Larimer County, talks about both avian influenza and public concerns with a pandemic, she starts with the bottom line.

“Avian flu is not pandemic flu,” she said. “We know that avian flu has spread to Europe, probably with migrating birds; but as far as we know there are no cases of avian flu in this country.”

Having said all that, Viste is quick to point out that there is reason to be concerned with the high pathogenic strain of avian flu, known as H5N1. A report in the April 21 edition of Science magazine puts it this way: Even if this strain of the virus never mutates in ways that allow for human-to-human transmission, a major outbreak with its potential for “laying waste to poultry and causing severe economic losses for farmers” is cause for alarm.

“The poultry industry is a $30 billion a year business,´ said Kristy Pabilonia, an avian disease diagnostic veterinarian at the Colorado State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. “We are the number one exporter of poultry meat, and so the costs associated with loss of trade resulting from widespread avian flu would be high. So would the costs of paying for eradication and disinfection as well as the loss of future production.”

She explained that there is a kind of poultry pyramid with experimental breeding stock at the top – here geneticists look for ways to improve the health and productivity of poultry, such as bigger breasts and stronger legs on turkeys – egg-producing birds next, and commercial meat birds at the base of the pyramid.

“It is easier to repopulate the bottom of the pyramid than it would be to recover from a loss of the ‘seed’ stock at the top,” she said.

Terry Osborne, production manager for Colorado-based Nest Fresh, added that the meat-producing side of the poultry business could adjust to and recover from an avian flu epidemic – which might “lay waste” to whole poultry operations – because of the timeline of production.

“Seven weeks and a broiler is on the table,” he said. “It would take egg producers longer to adjust because it is really a two-year process to create a producing flock. The timing is more like that for beef. We saw the effects of that longer timeline in England with mad cow disease.”

Protecting what Pabilonia called a “vibrant poultry industry” in Colorado -including everything from backyard flocks to large commercial flocks – is the aim of a full-time surveillance team that includes Pabilonia, Clayton Ramey, a second-year vet student, and Nikki Malone, a pre-vet program assistant.

“We’ll be collecting samples from poultry to look for infection,´ said Ramey. “We’ll draw blood and take tracheal and cloacal swabs.”

Pabilonia pointed out that in Colorado there are lots of places to do surveillance work.

“There are fairs, 4-H shows, bird auctions, zoos, humane societies and vet clinics,” she said. “There are also commercial operations.”

Unfortunately, taking samples from exotic birds smuggled into the state or from fighting roosters used in illegal cock fighting will not be possible.

As the Science magazine article on wild bird migration pointed out, a surveillance system is critical because, among other things, it can systematically observe the “interface” between domestic and wild birds (potential virus carriers) and provide early warning information.

“We are doing a lot to prepare,” Pabilonia said. “We will teach people about early detection to prevent the spread of the virus. We have a big project to monitor wild waterfowl: ducks, geese and shore birds. Our Canadian geese are mostly resident, and so aren’t likely carriers.”

In addition to educating people who actually raise birds, publicly putting a surveillance team into operation before the first case of avian flu is reported supplies the kind of orderliness that mitigates unfounded fears.

According to a report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, irrational fear of disease transmission has progressively lowered global demand for broiler parts, “threatening industry profitability around the world.”

The report noted that in the United States, “export prices for broiler cuts, after rising to record levels in October 2005, dropped 13 percent as a result of declining shipments to Eastern Europe and Central Asia in November and December.”

In Osborne’s view, rumors of the flu are probably more harmful to the industry than the flu itself. Even cage-free layers live in large barns, isolated from contact with wild birds. And if that isolation were not sufficient to keep H5N1 at bay, ordinary food preparation would be.

“The liquid egg product used by fast food operations is pasteurized,” he said. “And proper cooking kills any virus. So there isn’t much chance to transmit the virus through food.”

The Food and Agriculture Organization reported in February 2004 that processed poultry products arriving from areas experiencing outbreaks of the H5N1 virus are not considered a public health risk. That report has not been revised.

So why has the Colorado Avian Disease Program been launched? Partly because a devastating event in the poultry business would not only affect domestic and international trace, but also the livelihood of grain producers – the poultry and egg industry gobble up approximately 80 billion pounds of feed each year – and all other businesses associated with processing and transporting products to market.

Dampening unfounded fears and providing education will do much to short-circuit an economic chain reaction.

 “The TV movie ‘Fatal Contact’ stirred up concerns about a bird flu pandemic,” Osborne said.

Indeed, “Fatal Contact” and overwrought reports from other media have had the effect of conflating avian flu with a pandemic, the conditions for which do not currently exist.

“The occurrence of AI (avian flu) in Europe is random, not widespread,” Pabilonia said. “If we do get it, we hope it will be sporadic. We can teach people how to prevent its spread.”

Viste added that the threat of bird flu to agribusiness is real, and the potential for a pandemic always exists in the natural cycle of things.

“Getting ready right now before AI arrives is not premature,” she said. “How many times did New Orleans hear, ‘The big one is going to hit’? And still there was no preparation.”

on Facebook on LinkedIn