February 11, 2004

 

 

US Confirms Second Bird Flu Outbreak

 

The United States announced on Tuesday a second outbreak of bird flu in the Delaware state. All live poultry sales were banned following the announcement; China and Japan were among some of the Asian countries to ban poultry imports from America. 

 

The H-7 type avian influenza was found in chickens on a farm in northern Sussex County, at least five miles from the Kent County farm where the original outbreak was discovered in a 12,000-bird flock, Anne Fitzgerald, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Agriculture, said in an e-mailed news release.

 

Some 73,000 chickens on the Sussex County farm were destroyed, state officials said. The state also quarantined up to 80 farms within six miles of the two outbreaks in an attempt to halt the spread of the disease. The farm supplies closely held Perdue Farms Inc., Perdue spokeswoman Tita Cherrier said.

 

"We have a multibillion industry at stake," Secretary of Agriculture Michael T. Scuse told reporters at a news conference in Dover. "This development is completely unexpected given the precautions we took, the investigation we made."

The original outbreak had been called an isolated case by Delaware Governor Ruth Ann Minner on Monday, after tests of nearby farms were negative.

 

Perdue Farms said in a statement on its Web site it believes the Sussex County flock it destroyed was exposed to the virus by the nearby Kent County flock. The company doesn't raise chickens for live markets, it said in the statement.

 

Delaware officials said they can't explain how the virus spread to the second farm.

 

Earlier yesterday they said that all 20 farms within a two-mile radius of the original outbreak had tested negative for the disease.

 

The virus in the latest outbreak was identified as the H7 strain of avian flu, which was found last year in Connecticut and Rhode Island. It is different from the virulent strain H5N1 that has killed 18 people in Asia and prompted the destruction of hundreds of millions of birds, Delaware's Fitzgerald said.

 

The flock destroyed Saturday was being raised for sale in outdoor bird markets in New York City.

 

As part of the quarantine, chickens being raised for big processors will be sent for slaughter only after samples are tested by the University of Delaware, Edwin Oder, a state Agriculture Department veterinarian, said. Everything moving on and off the farms will be checked and sterilized, he said.

 

The quarantine will remain in place for at least 30 days, he said. All sales of poultry in outdoor markets are banned.

 

Delaware was the seventh-largest producer of broiler chickens in 2001, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The state produced about 3.5 percent of the nation's chicken, almost 280 million birds in 2003 valued at about $500 million.

 

Chicken production in the Delmarva peninsula, which includes parts of Delaware, Maryland and Virginia, is valued at $1.5 billion annually, said Bill Satterfield, executive director of Delmarva Poultry Inc., an umbrella organization for regional poultry growers.

 

U.S. chicken exports produce $2 billion in revenue a year and account for 2.8 million tons, or 15 percent, of production, said Richard Lobb, a spokesman for the National Chicken Council.