The Current - What you need to know about the bird flu case in B.C.

Episode Date: November 14, 2024

A B.C. teenager is in critical condition with bird flu, in what's believed to be the first domestically acquired case of H5N1 avian influenza in Canada. With the source of the infection still unknown, we look at the possibility of a wider outbreak — and what people can do to reduce that risk. [CORRECTION: A previous version of this story said this was the first human case of avian influenza caught in Canada. In fact, the case is the first domestically acquired case of H5N1 avian influenza in this country. Two poultry farm workers in B.C.'s Fraser Valley fell ill with H7N3 avian influenza during an outbreak in 2004.]

In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news, so I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with Season 3 of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy.

On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current Podcast. A teenager in British Columbia is in critical condition after testing positive for bird flu caused by the H5N1 strain of avian influenza. It is believed to be the first human case of bird flu contracted in Canada. How the teen got infected still is unknown, but like any health crisis, job number one is containment. There are extensive and thorough investigations that need to be done to determine, one, if anybody else is sick. And so that has been our priority, to make sure that people who have been in contact with this young person

during their infectious period are assessed, are tested, and all of the people who've been in contact either at home or in the hospital are notified. That's BC's Provincial Health Officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry. She says it's likely the infection came from exposure to a sick animal or something in the environment. And while this remains the only reported case in Canada, there are approximately four dozen active cases in the United States. Helen Branswell is a senior writer at the online health and science publication STAT

covering infectious diseases and global health. Helen, good morning. Hi, Matt. We'll get to the BC case in a moment, but just broadly, start with the basics, if you would, the bird flu basics. What exactly is this virus? Oh, okay. So this is a virus that nature designed to infect birds.

It is found in wild waterfowl, typically ducks and those kinds of things. And it occasionally can spill over into poultry. And when it does, it can be lethal. H5N1 is a virus that causes severe illness in poultry. In fact, they either die or have to be put down. severe illness in poultry. In fact, they either die or have to be put down. This version of H5N1 has been detected since 1996. Over that period of roughly 30 years, there have been occasional human infections across the world, somewhere around 950 now. And about half of those infections have been fatal. So it's a virus that people who are on the lookout for pandemic threats watch very, very closely. What do we know about how it's transmitted both from bird to bird, but also

to your point, jumping to other species. So in birds, it infects their guts and they, you know, birds get it by drinking water in a pond that has, you know, another duck has pooped in and that's the way it goes. And I, you know, the same would be true about poultry, but occasionally when it, you know, it gets into other species, either because a mammal like a scavenger mammal like a martin or a raccoon or something might eat an infected bird and acquire it that way. Or, you know, your listeners might have remembered hearing last year about whales and seals off the coast of South America, you know, dying from this infection. Probably the same root of infection. putting down infected chickens, or in the United States now, this virus is spreading in dairy cattle. And people who work on dairy farms have been getting infected probably through contact with infected milk. Let's talk about this teen in British Columbia. What do we know thus far? I mean, we heard a little bit from Dr. Bonnie Henry, but broadly, what do we know so far? Well, so the teen was infected and they have no

good explanation yet for how this child came in contact with the virus. Didn't live on a farm, didn't have contact with poultry. And, you know, as far as Canada knows, this virus is not in dairy cattle in Canada. In fact, the virus that was isolated from this teen is not the version of the virus that's circulating in cattle in the United States. So that would suggest that's probably, you know, not a source. They are looking very hard. The teen did have some contact with domestic animals, dogs, cats, reptiles, that, but none of them tested positive. So they're still searching. And Dr. Henry suggests that there's a possibility they will not be able to find the source of the infection in this child. That said, as you said in your intro, they've been following very closely the people around the team,

people who were in contact with him or her during their infectious period and looking for illness there and to date have found no evidence that anyone else is sick, which is good news. Why does it matter that this, again, there was research that was done here in Canada to figure out the strain of the virus. Why does it matter that it is not the version of H5N1 that is being found in cows in the United States? It only matters to a degree. You know, Canada doesn't believe that the cow version of the virus is in Canada. And if this had been that version, that belief would have to have been questioned. But this child still was infected with H5N1. The child is very sick. H5N1 is a virus that

people don't want to see in people, you know, scientists don't want to see in people in you know scientists don't want to see in people because it's it's because most of us have no immunity to it and that makes it dangerous to humans um yeah so it's it's only good news in in some ways but really not you know in the ways that matter people shouldn't be catching h5n1 and the fact that the source of the infection can't be determined or hasn't been determined is a bit unsettling. The question and the unsettling part is that the concern is this could be not the beginning of something, but the beginning of the beginning of something. And in a piece that you wrote for STAT, you're talking about what Dr. Bonnie Henry said at her media conference yesterday, but also speaking with a friend of ours, Dr. Bonnie Henry said at her media conference yesterday,

but also speaking with a friend of ours, Dr. Alison McGeer, who's an infectious diseases consultant in Toronto at Sinai Health. What did Alison McGeer say about those concerns that, again, this could be the beginning of something? Right. So, you know, there are one-off cases that there are never explanations for. In fact, in the united states recently there was a person in missouri who tested positive no contact with um any poultry or or cattle and um they're probably never going to be able to figure out how that person

got sick but there is no evident ongoing spread. That's one scenario. That's a scenario you hope for in British Columbia. But, you know, anybody who follows flu will remember the 2009 H1N1 pandemic. And the way that first came to light was that California announced that it had found two cases of swine flu in two children who hadn't been exposed to pigs and hadn't been exposed to each other. And, you know, within a couple of weeks, Texas was reporting cases, California found more cases, and the world realized that a pandemic was underway. What Allison said yesterday was that, you know know effectively that every day that passes where British Columbia does not find an additional case is a good day this you know we're getting

further and further out from when this child was infectious and in the community and in a position to infect other people if that was going to happen. And so the longer it goes without more cases, you know, the more hopeful one might feel that this is just going to be a one-off. How worried are you that it won't be a one-off? Again, how, and the concern is that this could be the door opening to something else. We have just lived through something. Some people are still living through that thing, which is a global pandemic. How worried are you about that? are still living through that thing, which is a global pandemic. How worried are you about that? You never like to see H5N1 in a human. It's a bad virus, and it's just one that we would not want to see take off. So it always gets your attention when you see a report of a case and certainly a report of a case where there's no evident way to explain how the exposure happened. That always makes you wonder if there is undetected human-to-human transmission happening.

said, you know, this recent evidence from Missouri that there can be one-offs that, you know, that I don't know how worried am I? I'm not not worried, but I'm not super worried yet. Does that answer the question? It does. I mean, you're being very measured in what you say and how you say it, which I think is important. We're about to speak with a farmer in British Columbia who had to cull his chickens. And we'll talk about preventative measures. But from your perspective, are there preventative measures that have been successful over the years to avoid contamination and avoid the possibility of this virus spreading?

Well, certainly, you know, the best, the industry that has the most experience with it is the poultry industry. They've been dealing with H5 and another highly pathogenic avian flu virus, H7 viruses, for decades now. And in the Fraser Valley, they've had a bunch of outbreaks. So they know how to do this. so they know how to do this. When those viruses get into poultry populations, you have to cull to contain them, and cullers have to be careful about wearing protective equipment

so that they don't get infected. People who see dead birds or have a dead bird delivered to them by their cat should be careful about any physical contact with dead birds. You know, it's interesting to watch what's happening in the United States, watching the virus moving through cattle in the United States. It's something that the virus doesn't kill cattle very often, which makes the incentive to cull non-existent. And that has made controlling it very, very difficult. And the country is not controlling it.

There's been infection in almost 500 herds now over 15 states and no sign this is stopping. So it can be done, but it takes political will and it takes money. And, you know, that's lacking right now here. It's always good to talk to you, Helen. Thank you very much for this. Thank you. Helen Branswell is a senior writer on infectious diseases with the online health and science publication STAT. She was in Boston.

In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news. So I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with season three of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy. On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. Mark Siemens is an egg farmer in Abbotsford, British Columbia,

who, as I mentioned, recently had an outbreak of avian influenza on his farm. Mark, good morning to you. Good morning. You've had to call your chickens. Tell me about some of the signs that you first noticed in your chickens when this outbreak began. Yeah, so we in the Fraser Valley of British Columbia have faced this disease for several years in a row now. So when I went into my barn, which the previous day had looked completely healthy and saw that a lot of the birds seemed to have irritation in their eyes,

quickly called the sick bird line and got my birds tested to see what was going on. And unfortunately, it came back positive for the avian influenza disease. So we started down that journey of the difficult journey of, first of all, watching the birds immediately deteriorate and get incredibly sick over the course of 24 hours. And then inevitably and quite quickly had the CFIA on site and ready to depopulate the farm. I mean, as a farmer, depopulate means that you had to cull the flock. Tell me a little bit about how many birds you lost. So on my farm, I've got 30,000 free-range laying hens.

And yeah, that whole farm had to be cleared right out. You've described this as devastating. It certainly is, right? Like this is our livelihood and not only that like you know we we farm because we love taking care of the animals and we take a ton of pride in it like these are these are birds i've raised since they were a day old and you know we're in there as a as a family every day taking care of them and so to have to kind of watch this process take place and you know, at the end of depopulation day, you're looking at an empty farm, which

is something that never happens. We never have empty, all of our barns empty, right? It's just kind of a big shock to us as a family to go through. What do you know about what may have caused the outbreak on the farm? It's the migratory season for all the wild birds. So they have been really heavy in the area. And one of the things that we notice is is a pattern i have also been involved in sort of the emergency response and been managing this disease over previous years although i've never been impacted on my own farm i've been very involved in trying to help other farmers and and stuff recover and manage it so what what we all observe is that uh during migratory bird season

when there is a heavy windstorm we will often see uh several farms test positive you know five six seven days later and it seems to be an ongoing uh challenge that we face here in the Fraser Valley due to how much uh migratory bird activity we see during October, November, and into December. What is it like as a farmer? I mean, knowing that that's an existence that can often be on a knife edge of profitability or not having money coming in, what is it like to live with this thing in the shadows as you said this isn't the first year that that folks in the Fraser Valley have had to deal with this yeah it's it's always a high stress time of year for the past few years you're the anxiety level is high and you know thankfully it's a tight-knit community of farmers and we stay in touch with each other and you know the

farmers who go down like we're we're going through a devastating time. But then our neighbors who are trying to remain vigilant as much as possible and every day are living with this anxiety of going into their barn one morning and then seeing the symptoms. It's a very, very high stress time, incredibly difficult. And we all kind of breathe this sigh of relief once we get to the end of bird season and there's you know seven to ten days of of quiet and no more positive farms and you know hopefully those who got through it can enjoy christmas uh it's just crazy what uh what

this disease has has become in the uh wild bird population compared to what we were has become in the wild bird population compared to what we were used to in the past. Can I ask you, if you don't mind, but I mean, financially, how do you recover from something like this? When the entire, as you said, the farm is empty. You don't have those moments. That's a huge financial hit. Is there help for you to recover from the cost of culling those birds?

Yeah, thankfully thankfully the federal government has a compensation program so they will reimburse for the value of the birds that were in the barn. It's still a gigantic hit as we are left covering all of the cleaning and disinfection fees and you still have no income

for however long it takes for you to get started so it's still a huge hit but thankfully that compensation keeps us going and most of us have a good relationship with our financial institutions who have watched other farmers go through it and so typically they will also assist the farmers by, you know, going down to an interest only payment or something like that as needed. If you spend any time in rural communities, you will see in front of poultry farms often, you know, the signs telling you to stop saying that there are biohazard concerns, what have you to try to keep people out who have not gone through you know,

disinfectant decontamination kind of procedures. What can you do to avoid having your birds contaminated? Yeah, so you're pointing to a program that was started back in 2004, 2005, after our first experience with this disease. And that was brought in to reduce farm-to- farm to farm spread as that was sort of viewed as the highest risk factor back then and we did a fantastic job of bringing that down and getting better at controlling disease outbreaks when and if they did occur. Unfortunately a few years ago the strain of the virus that was circulating in

the wild birds became a lot more pathogenic. And so it seems to pose the greatest risk now. And we have not kept up with trying to find better ways of mitigating that as an industry. So our biosecurity programs, while preventing spread farm to farm and from one farmer to another farmer, it does reduce the possibility of the farmer bringing it in. Unfortunately, when a windstorm seems to be able to blow it into your barn now, it has really created a lot of problems for us. I have to let you go, but there's not much, I mean, if it's wild birds and the windstorm that's blowing in, there's not much you can do about that in some ways. Yeah, it's a difficult thing. I know there is research going on.

My brother's actually participating in one where it's a new style of ventilation that will hopefully, you know, reduce the likelihood of that blowing into the barn. So we look forward to seeing how seeing how that goes in the future. Mark, good to talk to you about this. The best of luck to you. And thanks for being here. Thank you.

Mark Siemens is an egg farmer. He's an Abbotsford, British Columbia. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.