One day after officials revealed wild birds carrying
the H5 strain of avian flu virus have been found in Canada,
the nation's chief public health officer is urging Canadians not to panic.

"The first thing to know is that it's a huge leap
for a bird virus to become a human virus that spreads efficiently in people,"
said Dr. David Butler-Jones, appearing on CTV's Canada AM.

"That's just a tremendous leap and very difficult
and we likely would actually be able to watch that with the surveillance
and have better preparation for it," he said.

In fact, Butler-Jones said that avian flu viruses have
been discovered before.

"This really just documents more clearly what
we've known for a long time -- that there's a range of avian viruses and
that we do see them in all parts of the world, including in North America."

"In terms of the one that most people are worried
about, the H5N1 that we see in Southeast Asia, the Americans have been doing
surveillance in Alaska -- that's where it would come across."

Meanwhile, a stakeholder is also reassuring that Canada
is in a good position to stop an outbreak of avian flu in commercial poultry
stocks.

The Canadian Press reported that Chicken Farmers of
Canada General Manager Mike Dungate said Canadians learned lessons the hard
way last year when testing indicated that the avian flu found on a goose
and duck farm near Abbotsford, B.C. was not the H5 variety.

Instead, the 37,000 geese on the Fraser Valley Duck
and Goose Ltd. farm were exposed to the H7N3 strain of avian influenza virus.
The outbreak caused no major human health problems, but forced the culling
of some 16 million poultry.

Dungate noted that the outbreak, which devastated the
industry in the Fraser Valley, prompted the tightening of controls on biosecurity
and improved communication with federal officials.

On Monday, Canada's food inspection agency announced
that several wild waterfowl in Quebec and Manitoba have tested positive
for H5 flu viruses.

However, the chance of the strain being the lethal
H5N1 type is "likely fairly remote," said Jim Clark of the CFIA.

Health officials in Winnipeg conducting tests on the
H5-infected birds won't know whether they have H5N1 until mid-week.

Even if the Canadian birds are carrying the H5N1 virus,
it does not mean they are necessarily related to the viruses behind the
poultry outbreaks in Southeast Asia.

That strain is behind the avian flu problem growing
in Asia, where more than 60 people have died of H5N1 infection transmitted
from people.

With the strain crawling through Europe as migrating
fowl fly westward, there are mounting fears that the virus could mutate
into one that can easily spread among humans and thus prompt a global pandemic.

Get
Alex Jones and Paul Joseph Watson's books, ALL Alex's documentary films, films
by other authors, audio interviews and special reports. Sign up at Prison
Planet.tv - CLICK
HERE.