Brazil, the world’s top chicken exporter, has for the first time confirmed highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) cases, but only in wild birds, the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock said on Monday.
Two cases were detected in wild birds and should not trigger a ban on imports of Brazilian poultry products as per guidelines from the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH), the Brazilian government said.
The avian influenza virus can kill entire flocks of birds and cause losses for the farming sector. Brazil’s chicken exports rose 27 percent last year to US$9.76 billion, as other countries reeled from a global outbreak of the virus, yet the South American country had never registered a case until now.
Photo: AFP
The Brazilian government confirmed the detection of the H5N1 subtype of the influenza virus in two marine birds, of the Thalasseus acuflavidus species, on the coast of the southeastern state of Espirito Santo.
Brazil’s main poultry-producing states are in the far south and center-west. However, Espirito Santo is Brazil’s third-largest egg producing state, meat lobby ABPA said. It does not export eggs, but sells them in the domestic market.
Epidemiological surveillance services are to be intensified to detect potential cases in wild and commercial animals in the area close to where the cases were confirmed, a government source said.
The ministry said that because the cases were detected in wild animals, Brazil’s status “as a country free of HPAI” was not affected.
Miguel Gularte, CEO of Brazil-based BRF, the world’s largest chicken exporting company, told a news conference he was not surprised by the case of highly pathogenic avian influenza, adding that the company was prepared for any scenario.
He reiterated WOAH’s recommendations that no members of that organization would impose import bans, because of cases detected in wild animals.
He added that the company relies on Brazil’s “robust” animal health services to prevent and contain any potential threats to industrial poultry farms.
The main importers of Brazil’s chicken products last month included China, Japan, South Africa and Saudi Arabia.
China has banned imports of poultry from nearly 40 US states due to outbreaks of bird flu on commercial poultry farms.
Argentina suspended its poultry exports in late February after recording the first case of bird flu in its poultry industry in southern Rio Negro province, but resumed exports from bird flu free areas in late March.
A record number of chicken, turkeys and other birds have died in outbreaks in the US, Europe and Britain, and the virus is spreading in South America, Africa and Asia.
Losses of poultry flocks have contributed to record-high prices for eggs and turkey meat in some places.
While humans can contract H5N1, cases remain very rare, and global health officials have said the risk to humans is low.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS