Avian flu quarantine placed in 6-mile area east of Port Angeles

Published 12:01 am Wednesday, January 21, 2015

PORT ANGELES — State officials have imposed a avian-flu-related quarantine around about 6 miles in the Agnew area east of Port Angeles.

Two teams with the U.S. Department of Agriculture are going door-to-door today to talk with residents and ask their permission to test their flocks, said Dr. Alan Huddleston, spokesman.

The quarantine was imposed late Tuesday to guard against the spread of the bird virus, said Hector Castro, state Department of Agriculture spokesman.

State officials had expected to declare the quarantine earlier that day.

The hold-up was due to complex administrative procedures required to impose the restrictions on the movement of eggs, domestic poultry and poultry products and difficulties in determining the quarantine area’s boundaries, Castro said.

The state Department of Agriculture ban is on the movement of eggs, domestic poultry and poultry products within a 10-kilometer radius around property at 92 Cosmos Lane in the Agnew area where infected birds lived.

A backyard flock of 118 ducks, chickens and geese on the property was destroyed Sunday to stop the virus’ spread after at least five ducks died.

The fear among state officials is that it could spread into commercially raised chickens and turkeys.

To prevent that, government inspectors are traveling door-to-door within a 3 kilometer radius of the Cosmos Lane home — 1.9 miles — to find and talk with owners of domestic poultry and fowl and conduct voluntary, free testing of animals if so requested.

They will be making the rounds of the 1.9 miles through Saturday, Huddleston said.

After that, they will cover the broader range of the quarantine area through Tuesday, he added.

To see a map of the quarantine area, go to www.agr.wa.gov/lawsrules/rulemaking.

To test birds, team members wear protective clothing — head-to-toe Tyvek polyethylene suits, Huddleston said.

Samples are examined at a laboratory in Puyallup that detects the presence of avian influenza. That test takes three days, Huddleston said.

If the test is positive, the sample is examined further at a laboratory in Ames, Iowa., to determine the strain. That test takes another three to four days.

If the strain is a high pathogenic strain, such as H5N2 or H5N8, then the animals are destroyed.

Castro said turkeys and chickens are tested by examining swab samples from inside the birds’ beaks, while waterfowl such as ducks are tested by taking samples of their feces.

Contacted by the Peninsula Daily News, Sherry Smith, who owns the Cosmos Lane property with her husband, Gary, referred all inquiries to state and federal officials.

Huddleston said the Smiths did everything right in terms of contacting state officials and having their birds examined.

“They could write the book on what you do,” Huddleston said.

The USDA confirmed Friday that the Agnew birds were infected with the H5N2 strain of avian flu.

Jared Keefer, Jefferson County environmental health and water quality director, said in a prepared statement Tuesday that there is no immediate public health concern due to the avian flu outbreak on the property.

Avian flu virus has not been detected in the state commercial poultry operations or in any commercial facilities in the nation, state officials have said.

The response to the Agnew detections has been jointly handled by state and federal health and agriculture officials.

They include Huddleston, a veterinary medical officer with USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service in Maryland.

The quarantine was not imposed Monday because state offices were closed and state officials had to draft and approve an emergency rule to establish the restrictions, Castro said.

Castro said Tuesday that owners of backyard and commercial flocks should prevent their birds from coming into contact with wild waterfowl and that the owners should not share poultry equipment with other poultry farmers.

Equipment that is used to care for the birds also should be disinfected after use, as should coveralls, boots and buckets, Castro said.

Avian flu is not harmful to humans but is highly contagious and deadly among birds.

The virus cannot be transmitted by eating eggs or meat from infected birds.

At least five infected ducks on the Smiths’ property looked sick Jan. 7 and died by Jan. 9, Huddleston said.

The Smiths had set up an infirmary for the sick birds on their property.

The remaining 118 birds were euthanized in a chamber that was filled with carbon dioxide, Huddleston said Monday.

The birds become groggy and lose consciousness before expiring.

“We moved very quickly because many of the animals were sick,” Huddleston said.

“It agonized the family to see them sick.”

The dead animals and the protective suits worn by the U.S. and state agriculture workers during the cleanup operation were incinerated afterward, Huddleston said.

Government vehicles on the property also were scrubbed down, including the tires.

The virus does not survive on clothing for long, and the heat created by the friction between tires and pavement also destroys it within five miles of travel, Huddleston said.

“We take extra measures,” he said.

“We don’t want to go on a farm and take some off.”

Four other avian flu detections have occurred among birds in Washington state in recent months.

Two were in mid-December in Whatcom County in a falcon that had the H5N8 strain and a pin-tail duck with the H5N2 strain.

Two detections of H5N2 also were found in flocks of backyard poultry in Benton County in the Tri-Cities area, affecting about 700 chickens, turkeys, ducks and guinea fowl.

The avian influenza quarantine in the Agnew area is the second that has been established in the state, with the other quarantine zone covering parts of Benton and Franklin counties.

A December outbreak of H5N2 in southwest British Columbia led to the destruction of nearly 250,000 chickens and turkeys.

Keefer said die-offs of waterfowl, shore-birds and other wild birds should be reported to the state Department of Fish and Wildlife at 1-800-606-8768.

Domestic bird and commercial poultry die-offs and illnesses should be reported to the state Department of Agriculture Avian Health Program at 1-800-606-3056.

“This is a serious issue, and [bird owners] need to take steps to try to protect their birds,” Castro said.