PORT ANGELES — Federal health officials have finished their door-to-door inspection of poultry in the Agnew area east of Port Angeles that have been quarantined since Jan. 20 in response to the discovery of birds on a single property that were infected with avian flu.
No other instances of the bird flu have been found.
“Surveillance activities have concluded in Clallam County,” Alan Huddleston, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said Wednesday afternoon.
“I can also confirm that to date, all samples from Clallam County have been negative.”
The quarantine encompasses a 6.2-mile — or 10-kilometer — radius around 92 Cosmos Lane, where a backyard flock of 118 birds owned by Sherry and Gary Smith was destroyed Jan. 18 after at least five birds died of the H5N2 strain of avian flu.
Avian flu is lethal and highly contagious among birds but is not harmful to humans.
Poultry, eggs
Inspectors had been going door to door since Jan. 19 within a 1.9-mile radius of the Smith property to talk with people and, if they owned poultry, ask that they allow testing of the birds.
The state Department of Agriculture also set a quarantine on the movement of eggs, domestic poultry and poultry products within a 6.2-mile radius of the Smith property.
[For an interactive map of the quarantine area, go to http://tinyurl.com/PDN-avianflumap. Type in your address to see if your home is within the quarantine area.]
There is still no date set for the quarantine to be lifted.
As of Monday, the team of inspectors had visited 1,039 locations, according to Hector Castro, state Department of Agriculture spokesman.
Of those, there were 32 locations with domesticated poultry that allowed inspectors to take samples from their birds. There were 22 other properties visited whose owners did not allow inspectors to take samples.
Inspectors had been visiting “high-risk” areas — places near waterways that draw large numbers of wild birds — within the outer perimeter of the quarantine zone because officials believe the contaminated birds were infected by wild fowl.
“Wild water fowl is definitely where we are thinking the disease is being spread,” Castro said.
Who to call
Officials urged bird owners to protect their domestic birds from contact with wild water fowl and to remain vigilant in their biosecurity measures, and encouraged poultry owners who suspect sickness among their birds to contact state Department of Health officials at 800-606-3056.
Those who suspect wild birds of being ill are asked to call the state Department of Fish and Wildlife at 800-606-8768.
The virus has not been detected in any commercial poultry operations in Washington state or elsewhere in the nation, health officials said.
A quarantine that had been issued in parts of Franklin and Benton counties in Southeast Washington was lifted Tuesday.
Avian flu was found in two Benton County backyard flocks in December.
