April 1, 2004

 

 

Texas Officials Declare Bird Flu Outbreak Over

 

State health officials declared on Thursday that the outbreak of bird flu in southern Texas has been contained. The focus now will be on convincing countries that banned Texas chickens to reopen their borders.

 

"We must work to have our international trade status reinstated with nearly 40 countries," said Max Coats, deputy director for animal health programs at the Texas Animal Health Commission.

 

The commission announced that after five weeks of widespread testing it had found no more cases of the extremely infectious strain of the flu that struck a small poultry farm in Gonzales County east of San Antonio in February.

 

"We were very fortunate that this outbreak involved only one farm," Coats said in a statement.

 

"We were able to complete testing and demonstrate that the disease outbreak has been wiped out," he said.

 

Discovery of the flu led numerous countries to ban poultry imports from the United States because the illness can quickly wipe out bird flocks and in some cases is fatal to humans.

 

A different strain of bird flu was blamed for killing 22 people in Asia.

 

Texas and federal officials moved quickly to kill 6,600 chickens from the infected farm and to disinfect several poultry markets in Houston where birds from the farm had been sold.

 

They tested and retested hundreds of poultry operations within a 10-mile radius to see if the virus had spread.

 

Officials had described the infected farm as a remote, rundown operation in which hygienic practices were below industry standards.