Uruguayan authorities began vaccinating poultry against avian flu with immunizers from the United States, it was reported Tuesday in Montevideo. An additional batch of chemicals is due from Mexico shortly.
Argentine authorities Tuesday suspended poultry exports after the first case of avian flu was confirmed in the province of Río Negro. The South American country's poultry exports last year amounted to US$ 383 million, with China buying 75% of them. With 2.5 million tons of poultry meat produced annually, 10% are sold abroad.
Uruguay's Ministry of Livestock, Agriculture, and Fisheries (MGAP) sought technical advice from Chile to handle the current bird flu crisis, it was reported Friday in Montevideo.
With poultry prices soaring (a dozen of eggs in California reached eight dollars, yes eight dollars and climbing) because of the intense culling of millions of chickens caused by the avian flu, no wonder then than poultry meat exports from Brazil during January reached 420.900 tons, up 20.6% compared to the same period of the previous year and a record for the month, claimed the ABPA (Brazilian Association of Animal Protein) this week.
After two decades, the highly pathogenic (when almost all infected animals show symptoms of the disease) avian flu has become a real threat to Brazilian flocks and production. Nine countries in Central and South America have confirmed 75 outbreaks of the disease in recent months and have already had to sacrifice 1.2 million birds.
Honduran authorities have declared a 90-day nationwide health alert following an outbreak of avian influenza among pelicans, it was announced in Tegucigalpa. About 40,000 poultry were also evaluated and no signs of the malady were detected, it was also reported.
Ecuadorian health authorities have confirmed the first case of avian influenza in a human patient. The Ministry of Public Health (MSP) announced it was a 9-year-old girl who had been in contact with infected birds in the province of Bolivar.
Following the confirmation of reported cases of avian flu in the north of Chile, Public Health ministry officials visited the area over the weekend where hundreds of dead pelicans have been found, pointing out that so far there is no evidence of the bird flu contagion of humans and calling on people to avoid contact with dead or sick birds.
Ecuadorian authorities have activated an epidemiological encirclement following a surge in cases of avian influenza. The first confirmation stemmed from a poultry production farm in the Andean province of Cotopaxi thanks to controls by the Agency for Regulation and Phytosanitary and Zoosanitary Control (Agrocalidad), the Agriculture and Livestock Ministry said.
More than 50,5 million birds in US poultry farms have been slaughtered because of outbreaks of avian flu among flocks in over forty states, according to the Department of Agriculture.