Why Canada’s Food Inspection Agency won’t do interviews as avian flu outbreak grows in Ontario
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As the number of birds killed by an outbreak of avian flu at turkey farms near Strathroy, Ontario, approaches 100,000, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) says it will not allow its staff to do media interviews out of fear they could face harassment or even death threats.
The CFIA says about 95,000 birds have been affected at five different turkey farms in the area where the outbreak began on Nov. 26. A containment zone has been established to limit new infections.
The number of birds affected at each of the five affected sites ranged from 15,200 to 33,000. The CFIA says it cannot provide information about specific forms for confidentiality reasons.
One expert calls this “problematic” and says the public is missing out on vital information during the pandemic.
CFIA says spokesmen threatened
The CFIA is also not providing a spokesperson for media interviews. The agency said it had since killed more than 300 ostriches following the outbreak of avian flu. farms in bc last monthEmployees were harassed and received death threats.
“In the current environment, any CFIA employee who is publicly identified in connection with our avian influenza response (regardless of whether they are in BC or Ontario) becomes the target of harassment, including death threats, from individuals who oppose CFIA’s eradication policy at the Universal Ostrich Farm in British Columbia,” the agency said in a statement to CBC News.
University of Ottawa professor Daniel Stockmer says it’s unfortunate that media access would be limited due to threats during an outbreak.
“This is very problematic,” said Stockmer, who researches extremist groups. “People want a lot of transparency from the government. And so now they’re threatened and they don’t provide that transparency? That could lead to even more people distrusting the government. That’s not the way to fight disinformation.”
The Feather Board Command Center (FBCC), which coordinates the Ontario poultry industry’s response to the avian disease outbreak, has not responded to a request for an interview with CBC News.
Avian flu poses a serious threat to humans, academics say
Shayan Sharif, professor of immunology at the Ontario Veterinary College at the University of Guelph, has studied avian flu for more than 20 years. They say the virus represents a potential threat to humans because it is highly infectious, can mutate rapidly and has a proven ability to cross species.
A domestic cat in the United States has died after eating raw pet food and becoming infected with H5N1 bird flu. Epidemiologist Dr. Christopher Labose tells CBC News the risk of any individual pet getting avian flu is still low, but the concern is that the easier it becomes for it to infect different types of animals, ‘ultimately the easier it will be for this virus to infect humans.’
“It enables hiking with migratory birds,” Sharif said. “And then at the same time, it’s capable of infecting a really wide variety of species… over 300 different species of birds and over 40 species of mammals.”
Last year, a 13-year-old girl in BC became infected with avian flu, the first human case of the virus recorded in Canada. she was in serious condition But after spending several weeks in the hospital, he was releasedInfected people may have symptoms similar to seasonal influenza, although in severe cases it can be life-threatening,
“These viruses go through a lot of mutations,” Sharif said. “In a poultry house, when the virus enters, it has a certain type of genetic structure. By the time it ends up in that poultry house, it may actually have a very different genetic structure.”
Sharif says that right now the risk of human-to-human transmission is low, but this may change.
“Then we’re going to be faced with a virus that I would say … certainly has the potential for a pandemic,” he said. “That’s really what we need to avoid.”
Sharif says culling causes great hardship to the poultry industry, but it is “one of the major tools we have” to control the outbreak.
He also pointed to progress in developing vaccines for both people and birds. Earlier this year, the Public Health Agency of Canada Purchased 500,000 doses of human vaccine For protection against avian influenza for those most at risk.
