Poultry industry and avian influenza briefing points, 2004?

Briefing Points on Poultry Industry And Avian Influenza Poultry is Maryland’s top agricultural industry, providing a half billion dollars in Maryland farm income last year and employing 15,000 people in the Delmarva region. Maryland acted swiftly when we were given notice on March 5 that we had a preliminary positive on a flock near Pocomoke City in Worcester County. Since then the State has done everything possible to contain and eradicate avian influenza from Maryland and the Delmarva Peninsula. State agencies in Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia and the USDA are operating with unprecedented cooperation. This is being handled as a Delmarva situation, but Maryland is now taking the lead. MEMA coordinated agencies: everything from state police securing the farm and making it so that poultry trucks don’t have to stop at the weigh station; tax assessors staying off all agricultural land; and MDE expediting approvals for disposal of birds and contaminated materials. Worcester Emergency Management Agency provided its decontamination unit to make sure people working on the depopulation effort left the site “clean,” leaving their “dirty” clothes behind. The strain of avian influenza found on two farms in Delaware in early February and one farm near Pocomoke City, Maryland has not been associated with serious human illness. There is no history of it going to humans. (Only if pressed on human health: “DHMH is working with residents to put to rest any human health concerns they may have.” The quality of poultry meat and eggs are unaffected by AI and remain safe when cooked properly. People should have full confidence in the quality of chicken meat and eggs that they purchase in the store. USDA is conducting an epidemiological investigation (kind of like CSI but for poultry illness). We don’t yet have any indication of how the virus may have arrived at the Pocomoke City farm. There is no known connection between the Delaware and Maryland cases. Note: we are avoiding the word “outbreak.” Maryland has a single case. Delaware had two. This is out of 1900 farms and 5000 poultry houses. More than 2600 of these houses have tested negative for AI since testing protocol across Delmarva began on Feb. 6.