Andre Vallieres

"We want to target birds that are at the end of their production," says Andre Vallieres, CFIA's epidemiologist and scientific adviser."We have a better indication of the presence of a virus when birds are older."

Targeting these birds also means in cases where AI is found and the CFIA has to implement controls, the impact "will be less severe for that farm," he explains.

The low pathogenic AI testing is part of the Canada's Notifiable Avian Influenza Virus Surveillance System, designed to meet current World Organization for Animal Health guidelines and new requirements from the European Union that begin January, 2009.The EU requires Canada and other countries to have an AI surveillance system in place so they can continue to have a market for poultry products going to and through EU-member countries.

Preliminary survey results will be presented to the EU in December to ensure the border is kept open for Jan. 1, 2009, Vallieres says, while the final report will be presented in March, 2009.

Initially the plan was to test 1,000 farms across Canada.The CFIA reduced the number to 700 to 800 farms nationwide after it completed demographic studies to determine how many farms were expecting to send birds for slaughter.

Despite two AI outbreaks in Canada, one in B.C. and one in Saskatchewan, Vallieres says they don't expect "this low pathogenic avian influenza to circulate too much.

The government agency is also investigating whether an outbreak of the deadly pathogen is responsible for the deaths of more than 70 cows on farms in Saskatchewan province, said CFIA spokesman Andre Valliere.

As well, wildlife officials closed off an area southeast of Fort Resolution in the Northwest Territories this week after 14 buffalo carcasses were found there.Preliminary tests showed two died of anthrax, according to reports.

Valliere said only two of the Saskatchewan cow deaths have so far been confirmed due to exposure to anthrax.But its presence was detected on two Saskatchewan farms where at least 30 of the dead cows were found.

"The disease appears sporadically in nature," Valliere told AFP.