Bird Flu In Canada

Bird flu is definitely on the move.

Ken Falk, President of Fraser Valley Duck and Goose Ltd., lost 140,000 birds in the outbreak of a bird flu in Canada's western province of British Columbia in 2004. Now he is bracing for another possible hit to his family-owned business.

Falk's farm remains under quarantine a day after one of his 60,000 ducks tested positive for the H5 strain of bird flu.

Officials from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) are visiting farms in a five-km radius around the duck and goose farm in the town of Chilliwack in southern British Columbia. They are warning bird owners to practise strict biosecurity.

Swab samples from the infected ducks are on their way to a national health research center in Winnipeg, which houses one of the world's most secure labs for the testing of deadly diseases, for further testing. It will take two days of tests to determine if it is the same type that has infected humans in Asia.

On Saturday, local reports say the CFIA will order the cull of all birds on Falk's farm, meaning a precautionary killing of Falk's birds.

"We have to do something to ensure this H5 strain doesn't mutate and get into the environment," Cornelius Kiley with the CFIA told CTV.

"Obviously we're very sad about that. And it's going to be hard but as an industry, we've decided to be proactive," Falk said.

According to Saturday's Vancouver Sun, the virus showed up after Falk sent a sample of birds from his farm to a government lab to be tested for something unrelated to avian flu.