COLUMBIA-BAN ON US POULTRY.
Ecuador and Columbia are the latest countries to place restrictions on imports of poultry and poultry products from Kentucky after the state discovered non-pathogenic or low-pathogenic avian influenza on a Perdue Farms Inc. farm late last week.
The two South American governments said they would not accept raw poultry or poultry products slaughtered or processed on or before March 15. They join Russia and Japan, which already had established similar bans.
"When we detect a reportable avian influenza (H5 or H7 subtype) in a commercial operation, we traditionally report these findings to Canada, Russia and Japan," Cindy Ragin, spokeswoman for the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, told reporters. "Typically, they will stop taking poultry from the state where the detection was made until we provide information indicating the disease situation has passed. We also immediately report the finding to the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE). Once the OIE receives the report, they in turn send it out to all of its 173 Member countries, and such countries may or may not take any action. Because it is a low pathogenicity strain, most countries do not apply restrictions."
Ragin said there is no timetable for when shipments might resume to those countries that have placed restrictions.
Meanwhile, state and federal authorities are investigating the finding, although they said the strain poses minimal risk to human health and isn’t the high-pathogenic strain that has caused human and poultry deaths in other countries.
Authorities have quarantined the farm, which produces hatching eggs for Perdue Farms Inc. Perdue plans to depopulate 20,000 chickens in two houses on the farm, according to the Kentucky Department of Agriculture.
