No Artificial Intelligence in our industry; no, Avian Influenza is all the hype right now. And not just for those of us in the chicken industry. Tom Peters continues to write about it. On Drudge tonight, there were 7 headliners and a photo regarding AI. The WHO says that it is inevitable; the World Bank suggests the cost to the world economy may be over a trillion dollars.
People are always asking me about it, so I thought I'd write a little something so you can understand better and tell your friends about it. I'll do my best to make it simple.
Wild birds (avian) carry a range of influenza (flu) viruses with them naturally. Some bird flus are not very potent (low pathogenic) and some are very deadly (high pathogenic). There are a bunch of types (144 different strains possible) but the wild birds are usually unaffected by them. They do however transmit them to other animals through their mucous or fecal matter. Domestic or farm birds get them and can get sick from them.
So, for example, a migrating bird is flying south over Asia in the fall and defecates on the ground where chickens are being raised. A chicken eats its feed straight off the ground, swallows some fecal material, gets sick, and passes it around to the other birds on the farm. The farmer may even take the affected bird into a live market to be sold. In this live market, other birds can be infected quite easily.
When a bird flu is discovered at a farm in domesticated birds, the appropriate response is to kill all the birds in that flock. This prevents other birds from being infected and reduces the spread of that strain of bird flu.
For most bird flus, humans are not affected. (Other influenza strains are more common in humans.) What is so scary about the strain found in Asia in 2003 and still present there today (H5N1) is that it is deadly for the birds and is capable of infecting humans who come in contact with infected birds. In addition, the infected humans are dying at almost a 50% rate of known infection. The WHO, the World Bank, the President of the USA and others are afraid that if it ever mutates into a form where humans can be infected by contact with other humans, it could have devastating effects.
Critical things have to happen before doomsday can occur. 1.A wild bird must infect a domesticated bird like a chicken. 2.That chicken must infect a human. 3.That human needs to also have a strain of human flu at the same time that is easily transmitted to other humans. 4.Those two flu viruses must combine and mutate. 5.The new virus must still be deadly AND 6.easily transmitted among humans. If those all happen, then doomsday could occur. I fully agree. Millions dead around the world. Economies crippled. World travel and tourism halted. Our industry bankrupt. And there is nothing you or I can do about it.
In the USA, we grow our chickens in enclosed buildings called growout houses. So, there is almost zero risk that any of our commercially raised chickens will be infected by this bird flu from migrating birds. However, in Asia, live markets are prevalant and many citizens have chickens in the backyard. People love their chickens. These are fertile grounds for bird flu to enter chickens, transmit to other chickens, and transmit to people. So, anywhere domesticated birds are raised outdoors presents potential problems. In France, where free range chicken growing is a big industry, the government forced the growers to bring the flocks indoors to protect them from migratory birds. The USDA and the chicken industry in the USA are trying to enact a ban on all cock fighting in the USA to reduce the mobility of birds outside the commercial industry. More of this type action needs to occur.
The issue does not lie within the domestic commercial chicken supply. Instead, it lies in communities that have active live markets. Our chickens in the USA will not get sick and therefore will not get any of us sick; instead, a live chicken will infect a human in a live market who will infect ten others, that person will get on a plane from Hong Kong to L.A. where they will have infected 300 people on the plane and then the deadly flu will spread across the globe. Chickens in the USA have nothing to do with the chain of events and will not be impacted.
Instead, people will be afraid that eating chicken meat will possibly infect them or their family so they will quit eating chicken. This is a purely emotional decision and not one based on any facts. Consider how unfounded people act this story from Italy (see below.) Even if a chicken did have AI, fully cooking the meat would kill any virus present.
Despite all these explanations, the alarm in Europe has not receded. In Italy, two first division football clubs, Bologna and Udinese, announced Tuesday that due to the avian influenza cases detected in Turkey, Greece, and Romania, they were withdrawing all poultry products from the food menus offered in their stadiums. Italy's Health Minister Francesco Storace sharply criticised the measures, calling them "an incredible stupidity" that convey "a devastating message of fear."
In addition, I do not agree with those that say the pandemic is a certainty. If nations around the world will prevent live markets (update from China:they did), cock fighting, importing wild birds without testing them for flu viruses, outdoor raising of poultry and backyard chicken coops, then the likelihood of a person with the human flu ever getting the bird flu at the same time is very slim. Even slimmer is the chance that those two flus will mutate into a deadly easily transmittable virus.
And finally, eat more chicken. Just do like you always do and wash your hands after handling raw chicken and make sure you cook it fully. Even if a pandemic occurs, carry on because there is nothing else you can do.