Strain of Avian Flu in West Virginia

[DianeWV]

Heard a news blurp this evening concerning avian flu virus- was found on an unidentified (they are not releasing name yet) farm in Pendleton County-eastern panhandle WV. Don't know many details yet, but USDA ordered 25,000 turkeys to be killed and they are scanning a 6 mile radius to contain virus. Officials report "everything under control" lol This strain is not supposed to be harmful to humans but officials are afraid it may mutate into something more dangerous for birds. The website (can't Link): www.wvmetronews.com scroll down to "Thousands of Turkeys Killed". Just thought someone might be interested in reading to see how these situations are handled. Everybody take care.

[Windy in Kansas]

Worldwide emergency event map link:

http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/woalert.php?lang=eng

United States emergency event map link:

http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/usa_alert.php?lang=eng

[Mallow]

With all the chicken and turkey houses in that area this doesnt surprise me a bit. Our family farm is located in Pendleton county and the houses are everywhere down that way.

[wildhorse]

Its low path H5N2.

[turtlehead]

I'm not familiar with that part of the state, Mallow. I bet everyone with all those chicken/turkey houses are pretty nervous right about now.

25,000 turkeys - devastating
I'm not saying they shouldn't have been killed, because the virus has to be contained. Just that it's real hard luck for those people affected.

[Shagbarkmtcatle]

Our farm is located in Pendelton Co. but we raise beef cattle and don't have any poultry houses on it. It's for sale now since we just bought a farm last week in Grant Co.

[DianeWV]

Hi Folks. This strain H5 found is not dangerous to humans but does require destroying of the birds. I was just wondering how does this affect small flock owners in the six mile radius that's "under surveillance?" Since this falls under USDA, I'm assuming there is a national, standard protocol, I don't know what that entails....Just wondering. Take Care

[suburbanite]

Yeah, it sucks if you're a poultry farmer and they need to cull to keep it from rampaging through the nation's flocks. But being low path this one has only a moderate kill rate among chickens; it reduces the speed at which broilers gain weight and throws off egg-laying, so its impact is economic if it gets loose rather than in actually killing birds--it just makes them economically unviable.

Low path forms of flu can become high path when they encounter large numbers of naive new hosts, as can happen on a mega-farm. In that situation, the fastest virus is the 'winner' in the virus-vs-virus competition to infect the most hosts, and so the situation selects for the nastiest strains over the weaker ones. This is the other reason that even low path flu results in a cull of poultry--even when the flu doesn't readily cross species to affect humans. If it hits a big enough collection of birds to infect it can become high-path in birds.

I bet the pathologists were sweating bullets when they got that H5 data back; it usually takes longer to get the N moiety identified.