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Highly-Contagious Newcastle
Disease Found In Game Birds
Outbreak Found In Los Angeles County - Last Seen In 1998

10-5-2


A ProMED-mail post
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Date: 4 October 2002
From: ProMED-mail promed@promedmail.org
Source: Office International des Epizooties (OIE),
Disease InformationOctober 4, 2002 (edited)
http://www.oie.int/eng/info/hebdo/AIS_51.HTM#Sec1
 
Emergency report: Newcastle disease in the USA
 
(Date of previous reported outbreak: June 1998)
 
Information reported on 3 October 2002 from Dr Peter Fernandez, associate deputy administrator, International Services, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Washington, DC.
 
Nature of diagnosis: clinical and laboratory.
 
Date of initial detection of animal health incident: 26 September 2002.
 
Estimated date of first infection: 19 September 2002.
 
One outbreak in Los Angeles County, State of California, in the western part of the USA.
 
Description of affected population: the disease was found in game fowl in backyard flock locations. There are 2 laboratory confirmed positive premises and 4 premises that have epidemiological links to the positive premises and/or clinical signs present. No commercial poultry are affected.
 
The diagnosis was made by virus isolation at the National Veterinary Services Laboratories, Ames, Iowa. The causal agent is paramyxovirus type-1. The virus was found to have multiple basic amino acids at the fusion (F) protein cleavage activation site: arg. arg. glu. lys. arg* phe, a sequence compatible with that of mesogenic/velogenic pathotypes. Re-isolation of the virus from the original specimen is in progress.
 
Epidemiology
 
A. Source of agent / origin of infection: unknown. An evaluation of bird movements and movements of people and fomites is ongoing. B. Mode of spread: direct contact, fomites. C. Other epidemiological details: epidemiological investigations are ongoing to determine the extent of spread. Intensive surveillance is being conducted door-to-door in the affected areas. Control measures: quarantine of affected backyard premises, depopulation of affected/exposed game fowl. Epidemiological tracing is ongoing.
 
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ProMED-mail
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This is a potentially explosive situation because of the extremely rapid spread and easy transmissibility of the virus, high mortality in birds, the particular poultry subpopulation involved, and the time which has elapsed since the first incident. All this means hard work and good luck will be required in order to get a quick eradication as occurred in the 1998 outbreak in Southern California -- see references below.
 
These birds in Southern California present a unique challenge because they are most likely fighting game cocks. Unfortunately, the outbreak appears to be located only a short distance from California's commercial layer establishments. Fighting game cocks are a population that travels a great deal and present several significant challenges. The good news is that no new flocks have been identified today -- a day after Peter Fernandez assembled his report. Since animal cruelty laws in the United States ban this activity in California and all but 3 other states, disease control officials will have more than their usual share of owner compliance issue to deal with. Another difficulty lies in the fact that fighting cocks populations present a significant epidemiologic challenge because their reason for living is to congregate and fight, which means be in close contact with other birds for an afternoon and evening and then return home if they haven't been too mutilated by the day's "sporting" activities. The congregation and dispersal, of course, will promote the spread of disease to new back yard game flocks and make the tracing of birds from the original outbreak flock much more complicated. Finally, some of these fighting cocks will be worth substantial amounts of money. Birds may travel great distances to fight other highly touted birds, increasing the potential for spread out of state. We can only hope that birds valuable enough to travel very far were valuable enough for the owners to have vaccinated against Newcastle Disease.
 
I understand considerable resources are being devoted to tracing birds from the outbreak site and that the implementation of surveillance strategies is progressing fairly well. In addition to the eradication program currently under way in California, there are two important things to do now to prevent spread to new areas. First of all, commercial poultry flocks should increase their biosecurity efforts and be especially vigilant about employees' extracurricular activities. Most poultry companies require their employees to forgo any contact with other poultry including backyard flocks (their own, relatives or friends), cock fights, or any other type of contact with non commercial poultry but now is the time to really get the message across. Secondly, diagnostic laboratories, poultry veterinarians, and others involved in the industry should be particularly and acutely vigilant. Early diagnosis of spread will astronomically increase the chances of control of the disease if it moves outside its present confinement. Given that the disease may have been circulating in game cock populations for almost two weeks, any delay in the chain of control should be avoided, particularly if the disease moves into commercial populations. --- Mod.PC
 
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