“Bird flu outbreak in Chile: Poultry farmers demand compensatory measures and vaccine approval”

Poultry farmers also demand compensatory measures for the sacrifices of hundreds of animals, since the virus has caused them to have to eliminate entire production facilities where contagion is registered.

Bird flu has claimed the lives of more than 900,000 birds in the industry, losing 5% of their annual productive capacity in eggs, whose value has risen 33% in recent months, according to the CPI.

It is for this reason that producers demand that the Ministry of Agriculture approve the vaccine against this flu, since it would be the most viable alternative to stop its spread.

In accordance with The Mercurypoultry farmers also demand compensatory measures for the sacrifices of hundreds of animals, since the virus has caused them to have to eliminate entire production facilities where a contagion is registered.

The same medium exposes that for a year the Minister of Agriculture, Esteban Valenzuela, has been promising “an itinerary for the moment in which we have clarity of the efficiency and effectiveness, of being able to incorporate the eventual vaccine,” said the portfolio holder in the seminar “Control, surveillance and biosecurity in avian influenza: challenges for Chile”, on May 22, 2022.

In this sense, the operations manager Avícola Sepúlveda Palou, Sergio Vallejos, made known to said newspaper, the impact that the sector carries, since it has some bankrupt companies and has others in danger of disappearing. And they would not be the only ones.

For his part, consulted on the issue, Minister Valenzuela reported that “a public-private commission has been formed to evaluate its eventual use and the conditions under which the process should be carried out.”

In this way, the time to clarify positions will come after the annual meeting of the World Organization for Animal Health (OMSA) to be organized in Paris, France, added the Minister of Agriculture.

Taking refuge in a global context of the avian influenza situation, Chile must see in the meeting, the aspects related to the control of the disease and the impacts on trade.