Recovery from the 2022 highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) outbreak “is now well underway,” in Ontario, Canada, the province’s Feather Board Command Centre (FBCC) said in a statement on its website.
Since March 20, HPAI was confirmed in commercial poultry flocks and six backyard flocks in Ontario, however, there have been no additional positive cases of HPAI in the province since May 18, when the virus was confirmed in a commercial flock in the Regional Municipality of York.
The commercial poultry flocks affected by HPAI in 2022 involved broilers, turkeys, turkey breeders, layer breeders, ducks and geese.
The FBCC said because of the successful completion of specific disease response milestone activities as prescribed by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), infected zones have now been released for all but two zones as of June 22. Post-outbreak surveillance is taking place in several primary control zones (PCZs), and if there are no further disease detections in those zones and other requirements are met, CFIA will consider revoking the PCZs, the board stated.
Avian influenza situation elsewhere in Canada
While there have been no new cases of HPAI in Ontario in more than a month, other provinces are also seeing a slowdown or cessation of new cases.
Every province has had at least one confirmed HPAI case, whether it has been in a commercial flock, backyard flock, wild birds or a combination of two or more of these. However, the last case was confirmed in the country on June 18, which involved a backyard flock in British Columbia. Prior to that, the last case was confirmed on June 16 in a backyard flock in Manitoba.
As far as the other provinces are concerned, these are the dates when the last HPAI cases were confirmed in commercial or backyard poultry:
- Alberta – June 2
- Saskatchewan – May 25
- Quebec – May 4
- New Brunswick – April 25
- Nova Scotia – March 15
- Newfoundland and Labrador – January 9
The remaining province, Prince Edward Island, has only had detections of HPAI in wild birds, and those cases are not tracked by CFIA, but the provincial government stated that the last case reported was in a Northern gannet on May 30.
Read our ongoing coverage of the global avian influenza outbreak.
