Avian influenza found in South Carolina

[saysfaa]

... feel that if you choose not to comply, you have the utmost responsibility to contain the outbreak.

I agree.

... If a commercial operation can't I don't see how a backyard keeper can.

Maybe not so much. The commercial operations know how to do it but don't necessarily have enough compliance from each and every person involved... whether not complying is intensional, accidental, or simply carelessness.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

So true about the news. It’s Sat - brains are allowed to be mush on the weekends. I’d love your opinion when you have a chance to read, and no hurry.

Two of the three links confirm that they don’t know much about the “how”. It just seems awfully bold that they (or maybe it’s really just the media) can fear monger based on hypothetical data. The third article had a sample size, but it wasn’t statistically valid. I can’t find a thing that validates their actions (but I’ll keep looking)…they can cull entire flocks based on…a guess? Or a handful of cases across millions of flocks? Scary. Another gross overreach of power by the lovely g-men.

The second link is the most thorough, in the view of my pre-caffeinated mind. Its indirect, of course, based on after the fact analysis of collected samples, combined with time and location data, then mapped onto predicted rates of mutation consistent with lab tests and real world experience. They have LPAI samples with unique variations, they found virtually identical samples in the same host with tiny further variations which present as HPAI in chickens as they rapidly outcompete the LPAI assumed precurser, even when the exposure was 1 or 2 orders of magnitude smaller, and they can then track further variations in those clades over time.

The variations are not single nucleotide substitutions - random transcription errors - but appear to be small chain substitutions with other, similar chains, already present in the host creature. That's a known and accepted process in the scientific community, which while random, occurs at predictable rates. However, due to limitations of testing, it has to be observed indirectly.

Here, they've sequenced, compared the rates of change, and found they fit closely the predicted rates of change, and can show the pattern of drift over time and location, including evolution back into LPAI strains with some of the unique halmarks of the prior HPAI infection.

That gives them a useful theory to model from which fits the evidence and can be used to make predictions, i.e. LPAI H5/H7 in the wild can mutate into HPAI H5/H7 spontaneously via reproduction errors including short change substitutions in host species, and they have identified key substitution locations. They also have testable theories as to why those locations are key - the biological alterations in the way the virus enters a cell or replicates itself upon entry, and examples of other genetic material of similar structure behaving in the same way.

Its not direct evidence proof, but its a useful a working theory until something better comes along. Sort of like Newton's theory of acceleration due to gravity. Even though we don't observe gravity workign directly, we have lots of observations, they fit the model, the model can be used to predict future events, and measuring those events provides results consistent with the model.

I need more coffee.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

I believe if a snap test shows positive (and they also have false positives) blood is sent off to one of the labs able to do a full sequence and determine the exact strain.

You can be sure big commercial operations (like Tyson with their army of lawyers) aren't going to allow millions of dollars of livestock to be destroyed over a $10 unreliable PCR test.

To the extent that it might be helpful...

I'm NPIP here in FL. My last certification testing was 03/08. Samples were taken in my presence, with my assistance. They were at the State lab by 03/09, and a final test result generated 03/11. Proof (in the form of business record) attached. I've redacted all but the first letter of my first name.

Based on the paragraph at the bottom, it appears FL first tests for all Influenza type A. If its not present, full stop, flock is clean. If it is, they then test for H5/H7 with a primer (likely an antibody test) AND send samples to NVSL for additional, more discriminatory testing. I assume other States do similar for reasons of both speed and cost.

 

[NanaK]

I assume other States do similar for reasons of both speed and cost.

Yes, I've noticed this in reports put out by states pertaining to AI positive flock. This is from a NC report but each state has a lab.

"The positive samples were identified by the N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services Veterinary Diagnostic lab in Raleigh. The samples have been sent to the USDA APHIS National Veterinary Services Lab in Ames, Iowa to confirm the positive result."

So they are tested by each state lab and if positive sent to USDA for verification and typing.

I want to thank you for taking the time to compose such informative posts. I really enjoy reading them here and in other threads.

Enjoy your coffee!

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Yes, I've noticed this in reports put out by states pertaining to AI positive flock. This is from a NC report but each state has a lab.

"The positive samples were identified by the N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services Veterinary Diagnostic lab in Raleigh. The samples have been sent to the USDA APHIS National Veterinary Services Lab in Ames, Iowa to confirm the positive result."

So they are tested by each state lab and if positive sent to USDA for verification and typing.

I want to thank you for taking the time to compose such informative posts. I really enjoy reading them here and in other threads.

Enjoy your coffee!

Learning like the rest of us here on BYC. Showing my work and my sources, so others of greater experience, education, and/or expertise can catch my errors. None of us benefit from being wrong. Last year, I was completely ignorant of this stuff - AI was (at the time) an overwhelmingly European problem.



Still, glad its benefiting someone other than myself, and appreciate that you took the time to say so.



/edit I'm in an odd mood this AM, sorry.

 

[MadGardener]

The commercial operations know how to do it but don't necessarily have enough compliance from each and every person involved... whether not complying is intensional, accidental, or simply carelessness.

This is a definite possibility. I don't feel that anyone, government official or not, can (ethically) tell a person what they can or can't do with their property. Just as far as those actions don't affect the lives or property of others. All of these instances we're thinking of are hypothetical until a suit and badge show up. I prefer to err on the side of caution when the stakes are high.

I don't have any confidence that I can contain a virulent infection in my backyard. I don't have the budget to build a covered run, and I feel very strongly about my chickens having access to fresh pasre. If my particular situation was different? I don't know.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Apologies is this or similar things have already been shared by someone else and I missed it.

“There is little evidence to suggest HPAI is being spread from farm to farm,” said the APHIS spokesman. “The current outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) is spreading across the country primarily due to the migration of wild birds.”

(from https://www.agriculture.com/news/bu...ke-as-bird-flu-outbreaks-reach-two-month-mark)

We already know it is being spread over large regions by migratory birds so that part isn't new, but it's interesting to me that they are finally saying it's not farm-to-farm. I haven't read any other instances of them addressing that. Of course they are not narrowing down the actual mechanism at all but saying what it isn't is still somewhat helpful I guess.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Apologies is this or similar things have already been shared by someone else and I missed it.


(from https://www.agriculture.com/news/bu...ke-as-bird-flu-outbreaks-reach-two-month-mark)

We already know it is being spread over large regions by migratory birds so that part isn't new, but it's interesting to me that they are finally saying it's not farm-to-farm. I haven't read any other instances of them addressing that. Of course they are not narrowing down the actual mechanism at all but saying what it isn't is still somewhat helpful I guess.

I'm sure it provides assurance to people who aren't following AI closely to have it spoken so clearly, but its a conclusion they should have been able to reach on their own, with a little thought. HPAI isn't transmitted inside the egg, and Tyson doesn't go to Con Agra or Wayne Farms to swap chickens. They all have their own largely closed systems, and their own vehicles. As condition of employment, they require people in their production and processing plants to NOT own home poultry flocks. That takes factory farming out of the picture as a primary transmission vector.

Smaller family farms might rent transportation when needed for bulk processing (remember, this was an issue for CA, the Newcastle infection before last - it was carried farm to farm on vehicles), but small family farms weren't the first, or even the majority, of reported cases in this outbreak. Wild birds were. Neither do they tend to swap a lot of birds between themselves more directly - they either produce their own or buy eggs in bulk, and eggs are excluded as a transmission vector by a host of factors.

This disease has a relatively rapid incubation period and very high mortality - it just can't move from small flock owner to small flock owner in a way that puts a case in South Carolina on Wednesday, and Miami FL on Friday without a lot of intervening infections in the middle if humans trading birds were the primary source of transmission.

Conclusion? Flocks are being accidentally exposed to the incidental shedding of HPAI/LPAI virii by a known environmental reservior - wild, non-galliformes birds - as part of their seasonal migratory patterns.

Unfortunately, small flock owners (the typical BYCer) frequently do rely on farm stores like Tractor Supply and Rural King, swap meets, and person to person trades - which makes disease clusters more likely as it increases *potential* incidental transmission from an infected flock to another via dirty shoes, trade of an asymptomatic bird, etc. and wile those are theoretically possible, they are clusters. By definition concentrated in a small geographic area. AI, as we've seen, is spreading in a pattern largely consistent with wild bird migratory patterns, not human movements.

Further conclusion - State restrictions on bird swaps, farm to farm poultry sales, etc are not likely to be a significant factor in protecting state or national industry in poultry or shell eggs for national consumption. That such restrictions do reduce the likelihood of local clusters forming around established trade meets, and helps the State defer assigning resources to tracing efforts intended to locate and test backyard flocks. I.e., they are using a big hammer to swat at gnats - but every once in a while, its successful. A fly swatter, after all, is simply a specialized hammer.


If I should ever run for political office, I'd appreciate if you would vote against me. So, most likely, would many of you.

 

[DonyaQuick]

I'm sure it provides assurance to people who aren't following AI closely to have it spoken so clearly, but its a conclusion they should have been able to reach on their own, with a little thought. HPAI isn't transmitted inside the egg, and Tyson doesn't go to Con Agra or Wayne Farms to swap chickens. They all have their own largely closed systems, and their own vehicles. As condition of employment, they require people in their production and processing plants to NOT own home poultry flocks. That takes factory farming out of the picture as a primary transmission vector.

Smaller family farms might rent transportation when needed for bulk processing (remember, this was an issue for CA, the Newcastle infection before last - it was carried farm to farm on vehicles), but small family farms weren't the first, or even the majority, of reported cases in this outbreak. Wild birds were. Neither do they tend to swap a lot of birds between themselves more directly - they either produce their own or buy eggs in bulk, and eggs are excluded as a transmission vector by a host of factors.

This disease has a relatively rapid incubation period and very high mortality - it just can't move from small flock owner to small flock owner in a way that puts a case in South Carolina on Wednesday, and Miami FL on Friday without a lot of intervening infections in the middle if humans trading birds were the primary source of transmission.

Conclusion? Flocks are being accidentally exposed to the incidental shedding of HPAI/LPAI virii by a known environmental reservior - wild, non-galliformes birds - as part of their seasonal migratory patterns.

Unfortunately, small flock owners (the typical BYCer) frequently do rely on farm stores like Tractor Supply and Rural King, swap meets, and person to person trades - which makes disease clusters more likely as it increases *potential* incidental transmission from an infected flock to another via dirty shoes, trade of an asymptomatic bird, etc. and wile those are theoretically possible, they are clusters. By definition concentrated in a small geographic area. AI, as we've seen, is spreading in a pattern largely consistent with wild bird migratory patterns, not human movements.

Further conclusion - State restrictions on bird swaps, farm to farm poultry sales, etc are not likely to be a significant factor in protecting state or national industry in poultry or shell eggs for national consumption. That such restrictions do reduce the likelihood of local clusters forming around established trade meets, and helps the State defer assigning resources to tracing efforts intended to locate and test backyard flocks. I.e., they are using a big hammer to swat at gnats - but every once in a while, its successful. A fly swatter, after all, is simply a specialized hammer.


If I should ever run for political office, I'd appreciate if you would vote against me. So, most likely, would many of you.

You might have read more into my short, sleepy post than intended. I posted that quote mostly aimed at those who, despite the articles and things posted in this thread (which I read too; I think we are on the same page), still have significant and possibly misplaced worries about going to the feed store beyond doing what one would sensibly do the spread of other common diseases. I also just thought it was nice to see that the finger of the powers that be wasn't being pointed at the small folks for a change.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

You might have read more into my short, sleepy post than intended. I posted that quote mostly aimed at those who, despite the articles and things posted in this thread (which I read too; I think we are on the same page), still have significant and possibly misplaced worries about going to the feed store beyond doing what one would sensibly do the spread of other common diseases. I also just thought it was nice to see that the finger of the powers that be wasn't being pointed at the small folks for a change.

But you will vote against as a candidate, right??? That's all I ask.