It has been a month since the first cases of Avian Influenza were found in Manitoba. Since then, there has only been one case in a Manitoba flock according to Wayne Hiltz, the Executive Director of Manitoba Chicken Producers.
Even before the outbreak of the one case, when it started getting noticed in wild bird foul, we increased to what we call our alert biosecurity which has certainly more restrictions on it than our regular biosecurity, and those farms that are within the control access zone of the infected site, those would have significant more biosecurity attached to them as well because they're in what we call the hot zone.
There are a number of provinces getting hit harder than Manitoba however.
There's certainly a wide range, and not all of these are commercial premises, some of these would be small flock included in these numbers. Alberta is I believe around 28, Ontario's at 25, and BC's at eight, but I believe only one is a commercial premise, the rest are all small flocks. The Maritimes I believe just has one, Quebec is around seven, and Saskatchewan has about a dozen as well.
Hiltz said the outbreak is the worst the country has seen since at least 2005 when he started in the industry.
