The outbreak that killed 35,297 pigs in a herd of 285,034 on a farm located on Bulan island was detected on April 1 and confirmed on April 28, the Paris-based WOAH said, citing Indonesian authorities.

African swine fever (ASF) is not dangerous to humans but is fatal for pigs. It has plagued China for years, with an initial wave during 2018 and 2019 killing millions of pigs and leading to a dramatic decline in meat output that roiled global markets. China is facing a recent surge in infections this year.

The source of the Indonesian outbreak is still unknown but veterinary authorities told WOAH that humans, vehicles, feed, flies and wild boar may have played an important role in the introduction of ASF on the farm.

The investigation started after the disease was detected by the Singapore Food Agency in imported pigs, they also said.

Indonesia is already up against another major livestock disease outbreak, after foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) turned up there in April last year. The country had previously been considered FMD-free by WOAH since 1990.

— Reporting for Reuters by Sybille de La Hamaide in Paris.

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The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said Thursday it had confirmed high-path H5N1 avian flu on Wednesday in two commercial poultry flocks in Mountain View County, between Calgary and Red Deer, and in one flock in Ponoka County, north of Red Deer.

CFIA said Thursday it had also confirmed high-path H5N1 on Wednesday in two more southern Ontario commercial poultry flocks: one at Markham, just north of Toronto, and the other in the municipality of Chatham-Kent, about 85 km east of Windsor.

The agency said it also confirmed high-path H5N1 on Tuesday in two additional cases in Ontario: one in a separate commercial poultry flock at Markham, the other in a backyard flock in Prince Edward County, south of Belleville.

In all cases, CFIA said Thursday, each infected premises has been placed under quarantine. The agency said it has begun investigations and would set up “movement control measures” on other farms within the affected areas.

CFIA didn’t say in its statement Thursday how many or what kinds of birds were affected in the new Alberta or Ontario outbreaks. An updated CFIA report on Canada’s avian flu cases wasn’t yet available Thursday from the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE).

Non-commercial high-path H5N1 cases in Canada since last fall have included wild birds in all four Atlantic provinces and Quebec, a bald eagle in the Vancouver area, birds at two “non-poultry” farms in Newfoundland’s Avalon Peninsula and birds in two non-commercial backyard flocks in Nova Scotia.

Canada had been deemed free of high-path avian flu up until February, when two outbreaks were confirmed on commercial Nova Scotia poultry farms.

The new Ontario cases, meanwhile, bring that province’s total to seven infected poultry farms and three backyard flocks since March 27.

The appearance of high-path avian flu in Western Canada during this latest run of H5N1 through North America had been considered a strong possibility, as outbreaks have been appearing gradually further west in the U.S. in recent weeks.

Avian flu “is spreading in wild bird populations across the globe and presents a significant national concern as birds migrate to Canada,” CFIA reiterated in its statement Thursday.

In the U.S. since February, cases of high-path avian flu have now been confirmed in commercial poultry and/or backyard flocks in 24 states — including four states directly bordering Canada.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has confirmed cases in flocks in Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Texas, Virgina, Wisconsin and Wyoming. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The Canadian Food Inspection Agency on Wednesday reported a confirmed outbreak of a highly-pathogenic (‘high-path’) strain of H5N1 avian influenza at an exhibition farm in the province’s southeast. It marks Canada’s first high-path outbreak since 2015.

The exhibition farm houses multiple species of birds and other animals and does not produce birds for sale, CFIA said. Thus, it’s considered “non-poultry” by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE).

Ontario’s Feather Board Command Centre, an industry agency that tracks both domestic and international bird disease outbreaks, said Wednesday the Newfoundland farm’s stock had included chickens, turkeys, emus, geese, ducks, guinea fowl and peafowl.

According to the report filed with the OIE, the flu strain killed 360 birds on the farm and another 59 were destroyed.

The farm is in a region the Newfoundland and Labrador government promotes as the “Seabird Capital of North America,” with “tens of thousands of migrating seabirds perched almost within arm’s length.”

Analysis shows the virus on the farm lines up genetically with the “Eurasian lineage” of high-path H5N1 that’s been circulating in poultry and wild birds in Europe and Asia this year, the OIE said in its report Wednesday.

But since the birds in this case aren’t commercial poultry, the OIE said, its Terrestrial Animal Health Code says OIE member countries “should not impose bans on the international trade of poultry commodities in response to notification of infection with any influenza A viruses in birds other than poultry.”

For that reason — and because no other cases of bird illness resembling avian influenza (AI) have been reported in the vicinity of the farm — Canada’s AI-free status “remains in place in accordance with (OIE) guidance,” CFIA said.

Avian flu, CFIA said, “circulates naturally in avian fauna and recent detections of high-pathogenic AI in Europe indicate an even higher risk of the disease in North American poultry flocks this year.

“This makes it more important than ever for anyone raising poultry to remain vigilant against AI and ensure they have effective biosecurity measures in place.”

Meanwhile, provincial and federal officials and the birds’ owner “are working closely together to manage this particular situation.”

Also, a three-kilometre “protection zone” and 10-km “surveillance zone” are now in place around the infected premises, CFIA said.

According to the agency’s report to the OIE, the farm’s outbreak first became apparent Dec. 8 and was confirmed through tests at Atlantic Veterinary College’s diagnostic services lab on Dec. 16 and Canada’s National Centre for Foreign Animal Disease in Winnipeg Dec. 19 and 20. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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South Korea, the fourth-largest beef importer in the world, is seeking more information about the case before lifting its suspension, the agency’s spokesman Patrick Girard said.

No other countries have told Canada, the eighth-largest beef exporter, that they are considering trade action, Girard said.

Canada on Thursday confirmed the BSE case in an 8-1/2-year-old beef cow in central Alberta, the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) said Monday.

The cow was euthanized on the farm and did not enter the food or animal feed chain, Girard said.

BSE is a fatal disease of the nervous system in cattle. Canada’s latest case is atypical — meaning that it is a form of BSE that can occur naturally in older cattle — as opposed to classical BSE, caused by an animal eating contaminated feed.

The first confirmed Canadian case of BSE — a classical form — was detected in 2003, resulting in some 40 export markets closing. Many have long since reopened.

— Reporting for Reuters by Rod Nickel in Winnipeg.

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The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said Friday it has notified the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) of a case of “atypical” bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in an 8-1/2-year-old beef cow on a farm in central Alberta’s Ponoka County.

Atypical BSE, a rare form of the disease, develops naturally and sporadically in affected cattle and is expected to occur at extremely low levels in all cattle populations worldwide, regardless of any BSE control measures in place.

The case announced Friday is the third atypical case to be found in Canada, following one each in 2006 and 2007.

Atypical BSE has never been reported to transmit to people, unlike “classical” BSE, which caused the other 17 cases confirmed in domestic Canadian cattle between 2003 and 2015 — and which occurs in cattle when an animal eats feed contaminated with the misfolded protein that causes the disease.

According to CFIA, about 92 per cent of atypical BSE cases found worldwide have been detected in animals over eight years old; the youngest reported was age five years, seven months.

Alberta’s Agriculture Minister Nate Horner, in a separate statement Friday, said atypical BSE “spontaneously happens at a rate of about one in one million cattle regardless of how well a producer takes care of their herd.”

Atypical BSE, he noted, “has been reported six times in the U.S., most recently in 2018, as well as a few other countries.”

The new case “will not affect the OIE negligible risk status of Canada and market access for Canadian animals and beef products should be unaffected,” CFIA said in a statement Friday.

That said, the federal government “will work with the cattle and beef industries to maintain the confidence of international trading partners to maintain market access for Canadian animals and products.”

Since the new case has been confirmed atypical, no further actions on the animal’s home farm are required, CFIA said, meaning no quarantines or other restrictions are to be put in place there.

Horner said the “quick discovery of this atypical case proves how effective the Canada and Alberta BSE surveillance program is and how dedicated our producers are to eliminating BSE in Canada’s cattle herd.”

According to CFIA’s report to the OIE, the cow in question was seen by a veterinarian on Dec. 6 after appearing injured and showing some “neurological signs.” BSE was confirmed Thursday by CFIA’s Lethbridge reference lab; the carcass was held and did not enter the food or feed supply chains.

Provincial and CFIA officials will meet Monday with stakeholders from across Alberta’s cattle industry, he said, “to answer questions and reassure them that all levels of government are working together on this case.”

To maintain negligible-risk status at the OIE, a country must show its last case of “classical” BSE was born more than 11 years ago and effective control measures and surveillance systems are in place. Canada’s last such BSE case was in a cow born in 2009.

BSE is in the family of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) such as scrapie in sheep, chronic wasting disease in deer and elk, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in people.

No treatment or vaccine against BSE is yet available, and no method yet exists to confirm the BSE agent’s presence in live animals.

From a public health perspective, the deaths of about 230 people worldwide from a variant form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) are believed to be connected to consumption of contaminated beef from BSE-infected cattle.

According to Health Canada, no cases of vCJD have ever been linked to eating Canadian beef and BSE in Canada poses an “extremely low” risk to human health. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

Updated, Dec. 20, 2021: Further details from CFIA’s report to the OIE are now included.

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Singapore has approved the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s certificate for exports of all Canadian beef, including beef offal, with no restrictions on the age of the cattle from which the beef was harvested.

Singapore’s decision, effective Friday (Aug. 20), makes it the first to remove BSE-related trade restrictions on beef that were held over from Canada’s previous “controlled risk” status.

Singapore had until now approved all Canadian boneless beef and bone-in beef from animals under 30 months of age (UTMs).

That said, Singapore hasn’t bought any Canadian beef since 2019, in which it took 1.79 tonnes, worth $31,000. Its biggest year for BSE-era beef imports from Canada was in 2014, when it took 53.77 tonnes, worth $586,000.

“While Singapore is not currently a large market for Canadian beef, (the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association) is pleased with the market access progress as diverse market access leads to trade resiliency and the highest overall value for Canadian farmers and ranchers,” CCA president Bob Lowe said in a release Tuesday announcing Singapore’s decision.

“We are encouraged by Singapore’s change and hope others will follow soon.”

Delegates to the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) formally recognized Canada’s “negligible risk” status in late May, putting it on the same footing as beef-producing and -exporting nations such as the U.S., Australia, Argentina, Brazil, India, New Zealand, Mexico and Ireland.

The discovery of Canada’s first case of BSE in domestic cattle in May 2003 led many countries to halt and/or restrict imports of Canadian beef — decisions which are estimated to have led to losses of up to $5.5 billion for Canada’s beef cattle sector in the years 2003 to 2006 alone.

Canada achieved “controlled risk” status for BSE in 2007. To get to negligible-risk status, a country must show its last case of “classical” BSE was born more than 11 years ago and effective control measures and surveillance systems are in place.

The last of Canada’s 19 domestic BSE cases, discovered in 2015, was in a cow born in 2009.

A progressive, fatal disease of the nervous system in cattle, crudely called “mad cow disease,” BSE is in the family of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) such as scrapie in sheep, chronic wasting disease in deer and elk, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in people.

No treatment or vaccine against BSE is yet available, and no method yet exists to confirm the BSE agent’s presence in live animals.

From a public health perspective, the deaths of about 230 people worldwide from a variant form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) are believed to be connected to consumption of contaminated beef from BSE-infected cattle.

According to Health Canada, no cases of vCJD have ever been linked to eating Canadian beef and BSE in Canada poses an “extremely low” risk to human health.

Most of Canada’s major beef export markets already approved all Canadian beef, based on their previous recognition of controlled-risk status.

However, the CCA said Tuesday, “several” key trading partners including China, Taiwan and South Korea haven’t yet done so.

Most of the remaining import bans are on Canada’s bone-in beef, offal and/or beef from animals over 30 months of age (OTMs), which are believed to be the highest-risk age group for development of BSE.

China, Russia and Peru, for examples, still accept Canadian bone-in beef only from UTMs, and boneless beef from OTMs. South Korea, Ukraine, Saudi Arabia and Egypt accept Canadian beef but only from UTMs. Indonesia accepts Canadian boneless beef from both UTMs and OTMs. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The Scientific Commission of the OIE (World Organization for Animal Health), which last met virtually over Feb. 1-12, has recommended to OIE delegates that Canada’s application seeking “negligible risk” status for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) “fulfills the necessary requirements,” the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said Friday.

The six-member commission’s recommendation has been submitted to the OIE’s 182 delegates, who are expected to vote on Canada’s application at the next general session of the World Assembly of OIE Delegates, to be held virtually May 24-28.

According to the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association (CCA), OIE member countries now have 60 days to ask for any information that’s included in Canada’s BSE dossier.

Canada, since 2007, has been on a short list of cattle-producing countries and regions deemed instead to be a “controlled risk” for BSE. Among others on the list are England, France, Scotland, Ireland and Ecuador.

For Canada, that status is based on surveillance and eradication measures set up since the country’s first domestic case of the disease was confirmed in an Alberta cow in 2003.

An upgrade to negligible risk would give Canada the same BSE status as beef-exporting nations such as Brazil, India, Australia, the U.S., Argentina, New Zealand and Mexico, among others.

That promotion “would help secure and negotiate access for Canadian cattle and beef products to trade markets that require products to originate from negligible BSE-risk status countries,” CFIA said Friday.

“Although we still need to await the final vote, I am optimistic that this will soon allow (cattle producers) to expand their markets for cattle and beef exports to the U.S. and other foreign markets,” federal Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau said in a release.

In a separate release Friday, CCA president Bob Lowe hailed the commission’s recommendation as “an important first step,” adding that the CCA “respects the OIE review process and will await the final determination in May.”

Requirements

The OIE’s current requirements for negligible-risk status include having shown “negligible risk with regard to the BSE agent for at least seven years” and having had no domestically-produced case of BSE born less than 11 years ago.

The most recent of Canada’s 19 home-grown cases of BSE was confirmed in 2015, in an Alberta beef cow born in 2009. The case was spotted through Canada’s BSE surveillance program and no part of it went into any food or feed supply chain, CFIA said previously.

Case 18, meanwhile, was an Alberta dairy cow confirmed with BSE in February 2011, and born in August 2004 — meaning Canada was just seven months shy of being able to seek negligible-risk status when Case 19 appeared.

The OIE also requires negligible-risk countries to show evidence of an “effective” ban on ruminant-to-ruminant feeding for at least eight years.

As with controlled-risk countries, negligible-risk countries must also show “intensive” active surveillance for BSE over at least a seven-year period, and maintained over time, the OIE says.

BSE risk status, according to the OIE, only applies in relation to “classical” BSE, which is transmitted through infected feed sources, rather than “atypical” BSE, forms of which are believed to occur spontaneously in cattle populations at a very low rate.

All but one of the cases seen in the U.S., for example, were deemed to be “atypical” BSE.

For its part, Ottawa “worked closely with provinces and industry to put forward a strong application based on data” to the OIE, and the “diligence” of that approach shows in the commission’s ruling, CFIA said Friday.

A progressive, fatal disease of the nervous system in cattle, crudely called “mad cow disease,” BSE is in the family of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) such as scrapie in sheep, chronic wasting disease in deer and elk, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in people.

No treatment or vaccine against BSE is yet available, and no method yet exists to confirm the BSE agent’s presence in live animals.

From a public health perspective, since the 1990s, about 180 cases of a variant form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) in people in Europe have been connected to consumption of contaminated beef from BSE-infected cattle.

Health Canada has said no cases of vCJD have ever been linked to eating Canadian beef and BSE in Canada poses an “extremely low” risk to human health. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Fraser Valley Health, the regional health authority for the area, on Sunday declared an outbreak at the farm after eight workers tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 in people. The farm’s exact location has not been released.

The farm’s operators and affected staff are now self-isolating, Fraser Health said Sunday, adding the site has been inspected by Fraser Health and WorkSafeBC and “we continue to work with the site on their COVID-19 mitigation strategies.”

Testing of animals was also launched, as mink are known to be susceptible to the virus and can transmit it to people, and vice-versa. The farm was put under quarantine and ordered to restrict transport of animals, products and goods from the site, Fraser Health said Sunday.

Tests from five mink samples taken from the farm have all since been confirmed positive for SARS-CoV-2, the provincial agriculture ministry said in a separate release Wednesday.

The infections — which mark the first known such cases in Canadian farmed mink — “were expected, considering the interaction between infected workers and mink on the farm,” the ministry said.

Samples were collected from the mink herd and submitted to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s National Centre for Foreign Animal Disease in Winnipeg after the affected workers’ tests turned up positive, the province said.

The World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) has also been notified, as per Canada’s international reporting requirements, the province added.

CFIA, in its report to the OIE, also noted “an increase in mortality” in the farm’s mink herd in the days following testing, totalling about 200 deaths out of about 15,000 mink.

Testing to determine genome sequencing and the strain of the virus is underway and results are anticipated “in the coming week,” the province said.

The quarantine remains in place, the ministry said, with a plan to provide feed and care to the mink during the outbreak that respects the conditions of the quarantine and “maintains worker and mink safety.”

The farm’s latest routine inspection was carried out in September by the provincial chief veterinarian and ag ministry staff and was “found to comply with all animal welfare and biosecurity standards.”

The COVID-19 outbreak at this farm is not considered to pose a health risk to other mink farms, the province added.

Mink-related variants

Canada’s mink farms reportedly began tightening their biosecurity after COVID-19 cases turned up in mink — first in the Netherlands in April, then in Italy, Spain, Sweden and the U.S. — and most notably in Denmark, where officials last month ordered a cull of the entire Danish farmed mink population.

Denmark’s cull was ordered on concerns that if a coronavirus reservoir establishes in farmed mink, the virus could pass back to humans in variant forms that resist COVID-19 vaccine candidates that have been developed for use on people.

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), in a risk assessment released Nov. 12, determined the risk so far from SARS-CoV-2 mink-related variants to be:

• low, for the general population, including those in areas with a high concentration of mink farms;
• moderate, for those with occupational exposure to minks, and for “medically vulnerable” people generally;
• moderate-to-high, for medically vulnerable people in mink-producing areas; and
• “very high,” for any medically vulnerable people with occupational exposure to minks.

The ECDC’s assessment is based on its analysis of mink-related variants, which so far has turned up only one with enough changes to its spike protein to raise “specific concern due to its effect on antigenicity.”

That said, the ECDC added, “it should be noted that continued transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in mink farms may eventually give rise to other variants of concern.”

Alan Herscovici, who operates the fur industry website TruthAboutFur.com, wrote in a blog post last Friday that the risk of inter-farm spread of COVID-19 is “far lower” in North America than in, say, Denmark, where “more than 1,200 farms were producing over 17 million mink in an area smaller than Vancouver Island.”

By comparison, about 200 farms spread clear across Canada and the U.S. produce about three million mink per year, he wrote. Cases found so far on U.S. farms, while involving thousands of mink, “appear to have been rapidly and effectively contained.”

However, the B.C. outbreak motivated at least one animal welfare group, the Canadian arm of Humane Society International, to reiterate its call to end fur farming in Canada.

“Clearly, the millions of minks that are intensively confined in Canadian factory fur farms are highly susceptible to contracting, mutating and transmitting SARS-CoV-2, which can result in outbreaks in human populations and undermine medical progress,” HSI said in a release Wednesday.

“It is unconscionable that our federal and provincial governments continue to allow and subsidize this cruel industry and put the health and safety of Canadians at risk simply to serve the whims of the fashion industry,” HSI wildlife campaign manager Kelly Butler said in the same release.

Canada’s National Farm Animal Care Council (NFACC) maintains a code of practice for the care and handling of farmed mink. A five-year review was completed in 2018.

NFACC, on its website, says the code is “currently undergoing an amendment” expected to be completed in March next year. “Major challenges” expected to be addressed in those amendments include pen sizes, access to nest boxes and methods of euthanizing mink. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

UPDATE, Dec. 10 — Article updated to include data from CFIA report to OIE.

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Foot-and-mouth is a highly contagious viral disease found in animals and is one of the most serious to affect livestock, including cattle, sheep and pigs.

The World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), which suspended the Andean country’s FMD-free status in August 2018, said on its website that Colombia had fulfilled the requirements to be re-declared free of the disease.

“We have waited months for this news,” Duque told reporters. “Now we want to open markets for Colombian meat… our goal is to double our meat exports in the coming years.”

Colombia, which has had a free trade agreement with Canada since 2011, is now classed by the OIE as a country where vaccination for FMD is practiced.

— Reporting for Reuters by Oliver Griffin.

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A report posted on the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) website showed that the disease, which has devastated herds in the world’s top pork producer China, had now been found in a village less than 30 km from Germany.

African swine fever is harmless to humans but highly deadly in boars and pigs. It originated in Africa before spreading to Europe and Asia and has already killed hundreds of millions of pigs, while reshaping global meat and feed markets.

Germany’s government in early December said it was stepping up measures to prevent an outbreak of African swine fever after a case was discovered in Poland close to its border.

A majority of the outbreaks reported by the Polish farm ministry to the OIE were discovered between Dec. 4 and Dec. 23 in neighbouring villages in the states of Lubuskie and Wielkopolskie, 75-100 km from the German border.

There are fears in Germany that its exports of pork to China and other Asian countries could be threatened, with import bans regularly imposed on pig meat from regions where African swine fever has been discovered.

Authorities in German states bordering Poland have built fences in an attempt to stop wild boars wandering into Germany and spreading the disease.

A series of 90-cm-high fences similar to those used to close farm fields were built by the state of Brandenburg in December while the state also relaxed hunting restrictions to allow more shooting of boar, the state agriculture ministry said.

The state of Saxony said it is this week building a 4.5-km electrified fence along a high-risk sector close to the border with Poland.

Countries infected by severe animal diseases, such as African swine fever or highly pathogenic bird flu, must warn the OIE immediately and submit regular follow-up reports.

— Reporting for Reuters by Sybille de La Hamaide in Paris and Michael Hogan in Hamburg.

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