Agriculture integral in planning nation’s bird flu response

? Response plans for early detection and control of an outbreak of a deadly bird flu strain in the United States are unfolding in farm states like Kansas and Missouri with their susceptible poultry flocks, game bird hunting preserves and wild bird populations.

“When we find it, we need to jump on it hard and get rid of it – that is going to be the key to it,” said Paul Grosdidier, a veterinarian with the Kansas Animal Health Department. “The quicker we get rid of it in the poultry population, the less concern we have with it in the human population.”

Across the nation, rural states are incorporating the newly released draft National Avian Influenza Response Plan from the Agriculture Department’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service into their own community outreach and emergency preparedness efforts.

Kansas symposiums begin

In Kansas, the first of a series of Kansas pandemic influenza symposiums begins today in Great Bend focusing on avian flu in domestic fowl and game birds. Other symposiums planned will target community groups and government agencies in separate seminars May 15 in Topeka. A session for health care providers is planned for May 22 in Salina.

Missouri also plans two as yet unscheduled workshops for upland game producers, said Rose Foster, coordinator for Missouri’s poultry health program. The state held its emergency preparedness mock exercise in Neosho last month targeting commercial poultry producers.

While Kansas is not a major poultry or egg producer, the state has more than 200 registered upland game bird producers who raise pheasant, quail and chukar for release on their own or others’ hunting preserves, Grosdidier said.

Missouri has 60 game bird facilities that release game birds for hunting, Foster said.

While Georgia, Arkansas and Alabama lead the nation in commercial broiler production, other rural states also have substantial poultry flocks at risk for avian flu.

Kansas producers raise about 18.5 million broilers to rank 39th in the nation. Missouri raises 33.5 million broilers and ranks 13th. Missouri is also the fifth largest turkey producing state.

Missouri’s response

As of the latest agricultural census count in 2002, Missouri had 6,305 poultry operations, said Gene Danekas, director of Missouri Agricultural Statistics Service. About 4,000 of those had backyard-type flocks with fewer than 50 chickens. Missouri has about 50 commercial poultry operations with more than 10,000 birds.

“The way we need to look at this is we need to try to prepare – but we don’t need to panic,” Grosdidier said.

Kansas hopes to get $200,000 from APHIS for surveillance efforts in poultry flocks to test for the high pathogenic strains of bird flu, he said. Of particular concern in Kansas is testing the flocks of game bird producers before those birds are released at hunting preserves.

“We are not requiring testing, but it is something we are hoping to get done,” he said. “We would like to have people volunteer to have their birds tested.”

Missouri is hoping to get $450,000 from APHIS to expand testing in more bird populations. Last fall, the state began testing breeding flocks, and the new money will include testing flocks being reared for meat or eggs for bird flu, Foster said.

Animal health officials are also asking poultry producers to contact their animal health department if five or more birds die in a week’s time in small waterfowl or poultry flocks of fewer than 20 birds; or if they lose 25 percent or more birds in flocks bigger than 20 birds. The toll-free contact number set up for those reports is (866) 536-7593.

Grant request

Kansas wildlife officials have also put in for a $75,000 grant from APHIS’ wildlife services to test for the disease in wild birds that hunters kill and bring to check stations or are otherwise found dead by residents, said Helen Hands, a wildlife biologist at the Cheyenne Bottoms Wildlife Area.

“Local birds don’t migrate, they are the last in line to be exposed to Asian influenza,” Hands said. The “first portal” where the disease is likely to show up in the United State is in wild bird populations in Alaska because of its proximity to regions of the world where the virus is prevalent.

After Alaska, the next most likely outbreak would be in Canada. Northern states such as North Dakota, Montana and Minnesota where migrating flocks enter the U.S. mainland are the next most susceptible states, Hands said. Migrating shore bird flocks that could carry the disease typically don’t make it down as far south as Kansas until July.