Ramford News

Ramford News
Vol. 2.56

All the news that’s fit to print…

Jan 2
Dead Birds in Ramford County Show Season’s First SRRV InfectionBy Robert Reporte

Ramford County health officials have identified 153 birds infected with the SRRV virus in what is believed to be the first occurrence of the disease this season in the county region.
The infected birds were among 208 dead birds found in two-thirds of the county’s regions, said a spokesman for the State Department of Health in Ramford County.  The department has just completed the year’s first round of testing for the mosquito-borne disease, which has spread fear at picnics, little league games and children’s camps.
Sixty-five of the infected birds were found bordering the Perdont Chicken Industry which lies adjacent to the GRO – UP Organic Farm Industry.   Ninety-eight other birds were found by the large Ramford Lake south-west of the main Ramford River. There have been no reported incidents of the virus in humans in the region this year.
Last year, when the virus was detected for the first time in
the Western Hemisphere, this  region  increased their surveillance for the mosquitoes that pass the infection to birds and humans.
Last mosquito season, 800 Ramford residents contracted SRRV but there were no mortalities.  However, 15,000 chickens in the Ramford’s Poultry Industries died or had to be destroyed when SRRV was detected and more than 300 dead wild birds were collected that tested positive for the virus.
Commissioner Amwell Now, director of the Department of Health, said Ramford County has been on the alert since March, conducting surveillance of adult mosquitoes and their larvae and trying to eliminate areas of standing water where mosquitoes might breed.  Testing dead birds has been adopted as the best early warning system for detecting the virus in the area, he said.
The positive results for the wild birds will lead Ramford County to intensify their surveillance of the adult mosquito population.  Only if that effort turns up more infected mosquitoes, officials said, will they consider local spraying.  The strategy was controversial last year.