American poultry veterinarians are using Google Earth to fine tune their plans for containing an outbreak of the highly pathogenic strain of H5N1 should it ever appear in the U.S.

The poultry industry has had an avian flu response plan in place ever since 1983-84, says Sherrill Davison, a poultry veterinarian at the University of Pennsylvania. Back then, an outbreak of a different form of avian flu—for the record, it was H5N2—decimated commercial flocks, leading to the loss of 17 million birds.

The current response plan—which basically consists of the swift identification of any problems followed by aggressive culling of flocks—has been tested several times in the past 20-plus years with minor outbreaks of other avian flu strains. The plan worked well to contain those outbreaks, Davison told me in a phone interview Tuesday, and it keeps getting better and better.

Preparation includes computerized databases that contain information about every major commercial poultry farm in the U.S., where it is located and the placement of its buildings. Knowing these locations in advance, along with other information, allows you to figure out where to cull the animals, if need be. And if you need to set up a quarantine area, it helps to know what other nearby farms or buildings should be included.

That’s where Google Earth comes in. Starting about a month ago, Davison says, she and others began using Google Earth to double-check their maps of poultry farms. The resolution is so good that they were able to pinpoint where the poultry houses are and update their information.

“The important message to everybody is we have response plans in place,” Davison says. “We’ve had to test them a few times with some of the milder diseases and they work well.”   

The big test, of course, will occur when and if H5N1 is detected in the Americas.

(Read a March 8 update to this post from a U Penn GIS coordinator here.)

—Christine Gorman