Free range in new AI front line

Free range units will be in the front line of a new EU battle against the spread of Avian Influenza.

This follows the European Commission’s decision to launch a new Directive on dealing with the disease which will focus on low pathogenic strains.

Up to now the EU’s strategies have centred on controlling the high pathogenic varieties that can cause serious illness in humans and which have the potential to develop into a pandemic with massive loss of life. But it is now switching attention to identifying low pathogenic strains early and preventing them mutating into more serious threats. And the chief target is the prevention of the transmission of AI from wild birds into domestic poultry.

The Commission accepts that the disease cannot be eradicated in the wild bird population. “But,” it insists, “the infection of domestic poultry can be effectively controlled and virus mutation into the highly pathogenic forms can be prevented.”

EU countries will be required to set up control and surveillance measures to achieve this. The plans will have to take into account “risk factors such as the possibility of contact of domestic poultry with wild birds, risk factors associated with different poultry species, the density of poultry farms etc.”

The new controls, estimated to cost up to £5 million a year, cannot fail but to involve closer scrutiny of free range farms.

The first full-scale survey has shown that Britain is currently free of Low Pathogenic Avian Influenza. The survey, carried out on 3,500 samples from end-of-lay flocks last year, came up entirely negative. But it will be repeated between September of this year and January 2006 and this time producers will have no choice but to allow Defra vets on farm to take samples.

Last year the testing was carried out on a voluntary basis and allowed producers with multi-age flocks to refuse to take part because of the risk that the discovery of the disease in one end-of-lay flock could lead to an order to destroy all the birds on the unit.

Compensation is payable only on the current value of the birds destroyed with no acknowledgement of loss of income or clean-out costs.

Concern continues to mount about the threat of Asian Bird Flu—the H5N1 virus—mutating so that it can pass directly from human to human. In the past 15 months there have been 47 confirmed cases of the virus passing from chickens to humans in Vietnam and Thailand. Thirty four of the victims died. A total of 125 million birds have been destroyed and the economic cost is put at £8 billion.

Britain’s chief medical officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, has predicted that at least 50,000 could die in this country if human-to-human transmission occurs. Some newspapers are reporting that COBRA, the UK emergency co-ordination team, has drawn up contingency plans to handle an outbreak which include the banning of large gatherings like football matches.

Health officials have ordered 14 million doses of the anti-viral Tamiflu which can help tackle symptoms in those who have the disease but cannot prevent its spread.

The Department of Health has revealed that in the event of an avian flu outbreak in the UK, poultry workers and others exposed to the risk of infection with AI will be offered prophylactic treatment with Tamiflu and the current flu vaccine. Although the flu vaccine does not protect against avian flu, it would be given to protect against the risk of infection with human flu, thereby minimising the risk of AI getting the chance to mutate.

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation has advised that it is not necessary for poultry workers to be immunised against influenza as a routine.

The British Egg Industry Council has warned: “It is absolutely vital that producers ensure that they operate the very highest standards of biosecurity to minimise any risk to poultry flocks.”

Packers are being told that they must demonstrate that they have in place bio-security protocols rigorous enough to allow the safe movement of eggs in the event of an AI outbreak. DEFRA will carry out a major AI contingency exercise in spring 2006.