05/26/06 Bird Flu at the Picnic

Can bird flu spoil your weekend picnic? I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. Six family members in Indonesia have died from avian influenza over the course of the last month - and a seventh is sick. While it`s the first time six deaths have occurred in one family - USDA Under Secretary for Food Safety Richard Raymond told reporters Wednesday there`s no confirmed evidence of human-to-human transmission of the highly pathogenic strain of avian influenza. But according to Raymond - an investigation is ongoing. RAYMOND: The Centers for Disease Control and HHS of course are continuing their investigation of possibilities of human to human transmission versus animal to human transmission as they do with every case that's been found. And again that's a Health and Human Services investigation and World Health Organization. But regardless of the outcome of the investigation - Raymond says it`s important to remember that even if the high path strain of bird flu is found in the U.S. - there`s no immediate threat to the American consumer. RAYMOND: First of all, there's been no cases of high path Asian H5N1 in North America. I mean that's just first and foremost. And if and when a case is found in a bird that does not mean that we have a human pandemic or that there's a risk of transmission from birds to humans or humans to humans. We just keep all those facts in mind. If we do find a high path H5N1 Asian strain in our poultry in America, and I presume we probably will, that does not instantly pose a threat to the consumer. As Raymond explains - it`s highly unlikely the virus would even make it into the U.S. food supply. RAYMOND: I think the risk of this avian influenza virus getting into our commercial flocks and poultry that we consume is extremely rare due to the fact that we have daily presence of public health veterinarians in every slaughter plant that slaughters poultry. They're watching live birds for signs of illness, disease. They're obviously looking at shipments for signs of morbidity or increased mortality and then of course we inspect every carcass as it goes through the plant. So we have lots of filters there that would pick up any sign of diseased birds. This is such a highly, rapidly fatal illness it's not like birds could incubate for 5 or 6 or 7 days they get the virus and they're dead within 48 hours. They're symptomatic with 18 hours so I doubt that we'll ever see it enter the food supply. But since Raymond can`t make that statement with 100-percent certainty - he reminds Americans that properly handling and cooking poultry - to 165-degrees - will kill the avian influenza virus. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.