The US Department of Agriculture confirmed, Monday, February 14, having detected the presence of avian flu in two additional farms after the finding of a first case of contamination last week, thus putting the sector a little more on its guard.
After having already observed the presence of the disease in wild birds on several occasions on the east coast of the United States in recent weeks, the ministry announced the discovery of a case in a farm in Indiana on February 9.
He reported on Monday that two additional farms had been affected, in Kentucky and Virginia. The authorities have placed the sites concerned in quarantine, and the birds present will be slaughtered in order to prevent the spread of the disease in the country, the largest producer of poultry in the world, according to the ministry.
A previous epizootic in 2015
No cases have been detected among humans, and the epizootic does not present an immediate public health problem, say the authorities. But the sector remains vigilant to avoid a repeat of the 2015 avian flu epizootic, which infected 211 farms in 15 states, from California to Indiana.
Nearly 50 million birds had then been killed – or their carcasses destroyed – and several countries had suspended their imports. The ministry assessed the losses at around 3.3 billion dollars (a little less than 3 billion euros) in total.
After the first case was discovered in Indiana last week, Mexico and China moved quickly to limit imports from that state. Any detection “is worrying” and “the industry remains on high alert”said a spokesperson for the federation representing poultry farmers, the National Chicken Council.
Three million poultry slaughtered in France since the end of November
But the monitoring and surveillance program put in place by the American authorities is “the strongest in the world” and producers are encouraged to ensure that the recommended measures are respected, he added in an email to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Tyson Foods, one of the largest chicken producers in the United States, pointed out, when publishing its results on February 7, that it had already increased its prevention measures, in particular on the east coast of the United States. United States. The group has, for example, limited the number of visits to its farms and increased the cleaning time for vehicles traveling to the farms.
Europe is already in the midst of an avian flu epizootic, with more than 18 million poultry slaughtered in Italy and around 3 million poultry in France since the first cases detected in farms at the end of November.
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