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As the United States battles new outbreaks of bird flu, the role and necessity of live- bird markets must be examined.
"We can't jeopardize the entire U.S. [poultry] industry," is the brief but incisive comment of Jim Sumner, president of the USA Poultry and Egg Export Council. This organization, representing integrators, operators of cold storage facilities, shippers, and agents, has been buffeted in a roller-coaster ride throughout 2003 and the current year as a result of trade embargoes following numerous outbreaks of low pathogenicity avian influenza, (LPAI) - most occurring in small flocks supplying live-bird markets (LBMs).
Long ignored by the commercial poultry industry, LBMs and their supply flocks emerged as a significant reservoir of avian influenza during the 1983/84 outbreak in Pennsylvania. Since this time, intensive surveillance has continuously demonstrated infection in LBMs, confirmed by recovering the virus from facilities and supply flocks in the Northeast and more recently, Texas.
The simple solution would be to close down markets and eliminate the trade in birds. Martin Smeltzer, regional epidemiologist with USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, says more than 20 million birds of various species pass through as many as 150 known storefront slaughter facilities in the Northeast metropolitan areas each year. Charles Beard, vice president of the US Poultry and Egg Association (USPEA), maintains that closing live-bird markets would drive the entire process underground, rendering it absolutely impossible to regulate and monitor, creating a bigger problem than the current situation.
An LPAI strain of H7N2 that emerged in the early 1990s has become the predominant isolate circulating in...