State Officials Outline Bird Flu Plan

By David Irvin, Montgomery Advertiser, Ala.

May 13–Alabamians shouldn’t worry too much about avian influenza, state officials said, because the state has a comprehensive plan to thwart the disease if it infects any chicken farms.

That was the message Friday from state health and agriculture officials, who responded to a made-for-TV movie called “Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America,” which aired earlier this week depicting a severe bird flu epidemic in the United States.

That’s not likely to happen, officials said at a news conference, since the disease can only be passed from bird to bird or from bird to human. The virus would have to mutate to allow human-to-human transfer for a full-scale epidemic.

“We’re just trying to make sure that the public understands that there is no need to panic, and that it is an animal disease and that the Department of Agriculture has a plan,” Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks said.

Avian flu is an important issue for Alabama, Sparks said, because state producers raise 1 billion chickens annually. At any one time, there are as many as 140 million live chickens in the state, and all those fowl represent $10 billion and 80,000 jobs to Alabama.

Officials played down the threat of the most virulent form of avian flu — H5N1 — which has killed more than 100 people overseas. No case of H5N1 has ever been discovered in the United States, though there have been avian flu outbreaks in the past of weaker, or “low path,” forms of the disease.

So far the chicken market hasn’t responded much to the threat of avian flu, although some Asian and European exports have suffered as bird flu scares increased, thereby reducing values abroad and limiting exports.

However, some of those markets are coming back, officials said.

If avian flu were found in an Alabama chicken flock — which hasn’t happened in Alabama since 1975 — STATE HEALTH AUTHORITIES WOULD CREATE THREE ZONES:

–The first would be the infected zone where the sick bird was found. That zone would be “depopulated” of birds, which means all the chickens would be killed and disposed of.

–The second, called the surveillance zone, would surround the first. Widespread testing would ensure the problem doesn’t spread, officials said.

–The third, a buffer zone, Sparks called the “first line of defense” or the zone of caution.

Despite their confidence in stopping the virus if it comes to Alabama, officials offered a cautionary word.

“One of the things we tend not to think enough about is individual responsibility in a disaster,” said Don Williamson, state health officer with the Alabama Department of Public Health.

It’s important to have food supplies and a couple of weeks of medicine on hand, Williamson said “whether that’s hurricane season and the loss of electric power or an ice storm or the possibility of a pandemic.”

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