Eleven more commercial poultry farms in Canada have had birds struck by avian metapneumovirus, bringing the nationwide total to 34 farms affected.
According to a report from the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH), ten of the new flocks were in Ontario, while the other was in Manitoba. Those are the only two Canadian provinces to have confirmed cases of avian metapneumovirus, which WOAH also refers to as turkey rhinotracheitis.
The newest case in Manitoba involved one turkey, but the size of the overall flock was not disclosed. The affected farm is located in Hanover.
Of the Ontario infections, four of them were in Huron County, with each of those flocks being identified as commercial chicken operations. Collectively among those four flocks, six birds were infected out of a total 65,000 susceptible chickens.
Oxford County had two flocks affected, with both of those being commercial turkey farms. One farm had 48,000 turkeys, four of which were infected, while the other had 27,000 turkeys, two of which were infected.
Brant County had a flock affected, with three of 3,700 commercial turkeys being struck by the virus.
All other cases involved chickens, with one farm affected in each of the following counties: Wellington, Waterloo and Perth. The Waterloo County flock had one case, while the Wellington and Perth flocks had two.
WOAH did not elaborate whether any of the affected chicken operations involved broilers or layers.
According to WOAH, all of the cases in Manitoba involved an aMPV-A variant of the disease, while only one of the premises in Ontario were of that variant. All other cases in Ontario involved the aMPV-B variant.
All of the bird samples were tested at the National Centre for Foreign Animal Disease laboratory in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Presently, Canada is the only country with a listed report on avian metapneumovirus/turkey rhinotracheitis on the WOAH website.
