Samples negative for bird flu after chickens killed
(CNS): The official results from samples sent to a laboratory in the United States from a flock of local chickens were negative for avian influenza (bird flu). After five samples were suspected to have been positive following local tests, the entire flock was euthanised. But the Department of Agriculture has now said that bird flu was not found in the samples. The DoA said that given how infectious the virus can be, euthanising the birds was the safest course of action.
“The rapid test results are indicative only of suspect cases of the virus, the presence or absence of which can be confirmed by PCR testing,” a DoA release stated. “In situations such as this, given the lack of on-island capacity for PCR testing for avian influenza, the time delay in receiving results from international laboratories and the highly infectious nature of the virus, the risk of waiting to take appropriate control measures is simply too great. As such, the best and most appropriate course of action to protect the islands’ poultry farmers is to euthanise the suspect flock and compensate the producer, as was done in this instance.”
Sudden and extensive deaths of birds in a flock can be the result of a number of factors, including but not limited to high levels of parasitic infection combined with other respiratory diseases and negative environmental conditions. The DoA noted that it remains best practice to test for avian influenza in all such instances of high mortality.
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Category: Agriculture, Animal Health, Business, Health
If it was my flock, they would have to call the police to cull them without definitive results. The owner should sue.
Get the flock outta here!
Foolish people…shoot first and ask later. Can’t bring a dead thing back to life
Cull the feral chicken pests. The cause far more damage than iguanas
Millions of dollars every year.
Must we wait until there is a human-risk epidemic to eliminate nuisance animals with high reproduction rates? Is that the threshold for intervening feral animal control action now? Fund and staff the DoA Chicken Catcher Budget please.
I knew it wasn’t bird flu. They’re too incompetent to know the difference. If it was bird flu other birds would have been sick. It would have to come from a bird that flew to the Cayman Islands so they would have found dead birds first. Those poor chickens probably ate something bad.
Glad to see people caring about the unnecessary killing of chickens…unless it’s for the dinner plate.
How chicken were euthanized? What happened to the euthanized chicken? The Dump?
Oops
What is tragic is that it was deemed necessary to add “bird flu” after the reference to “avian influenza”. A sad sign of the times.
Not at all! This is a newspaper, not a bloody textbook. Pompous remark.
Wouldn’t it have been better to isolate the chickens until the tests came back? Wth!
No, because that would require common sense.
Had to be!