By JOLENE CRAIG
Ohio Correspondent

PARKERSBURG, W.Va. — The West Virginia Commissioner of Agriculture has put a halt to poultry shows across the state, affecting the annual Youth and Open Poultry Show at the West Virginia Interstate Fair and Exposition in Mineral Wells.

The quarantine of poultry shows and sales was ordered by Gus R. Douglass, West Virginia Commissioner of Agriculture, on July 9 in response to a turkey flock testing positive for low pathogenicity avian influenza (LPAI) in Mt. Jackson, Va., according to a press release from the West Virginia Department of Agriculture (WVDA).
The strain is not the “bird flu” and poses no threat to human health.

The order applies to any gathering of live birds, including shows at fairs and festivals and sales of poultry. The order was effective July 9, and will be in place for 30 days unless another positive flock is discovered, the release stated.

“Once the quarantine is put in place, we can’t break it,” said H.R. Scott, West Virginia University extension agent for Wood County. “It will totally eliminate the poultry show at the fair and others throughout the state.”

The show is a 4-H and FFA event with a few open entries, Scott said.

“We had to do this a few years ago, and there really is nothing that can be done about it but go along with it,” he said. “We have to protect the health of the birds and the people involved.”

Students participating in the show were notified of the cancellation.
Ohio has not issued a ban to poultry shows and sales, and will continue shows as scheduled in Washington County, said Paul Kuber, animal sciences officer for the Ohio State University Extension Office.

“As far as I know, the West Virginia ban has no effect in Ohio,” said Tracy Waite, extension program assistant and 4-H youth coordinator for the Ohio State University extension office in Washington County. “No shows in Washington County have been canceled.”

The order does not apply to the commercial industry, which tests every flock for AI before it is moved off the farm to ensure that infected birds are not trucked past other poultry farms. Small flocks of birds raised outdoors are more susceptible to diseases, such as avian flu, because they are not raised in the controlled environments in which commercial birds are.

“The state of West Virginia has a growing commercial bird industry, and it needs to be protected,” Scott said. “If this is what has to be done, it will be done.”

Kuber said while Ohio has not placed a ban on poultry shows, there have been discussions on how to handle the situation if it spreads from West Virginia.

“Since there have been no problems to this point, we are just trying to educate the show organizers and youth on how to handle the birds and the warning signs of illness,” he said.

WVDA is on high alert for any signs of the disease, and the industry has been exercising enhanced surveillance protocols since a 2002 AI outbreak that affected West Virginia and Virginia.

Scott said with the state of the poultry industry in West Virginia, a risk cannot be taken in the possible spreading of the virus.
“It can be spread by wild birds – ducks and geese – and can easily be transmitted to other birds, especially in a show environment when they are close together,” he said.

Poultry companies on both sides of the West Virginia/Virginia border have instructed growers not to spread litter or move it from their farms until further notice, because that is the easiest way to spread the virus.

USDA’s National Veterinary Services Laboratory is doing further testing to help identify the virus and hopefully determine its source. The lab in Ames, Iowa, confirmed the presence of the AI antibodies in the turkeys, which did not show any signs of illness.
The Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, USDA and the poultry owner are working cooperatively to minimize the possibility that the virus will move beyond this farm.

The affected flock contained 54,000 birds, which were euthanized as a precaution and composted on-site. While LPAI poses no risk to human health, federal and state policy is to eradicate H5 and H7 subtypes because of their potential to change into more serious types, which have a higher mortality rate among birds.