Over 2.7 Million Birds Vaccinated Against Bird Flu in Ecuador’s First Month of Action

After the first month of vaccination against bird flu, from March 3 to April 2, 2,757,689 birds have been vaccinated on 51 farms, the Regulation and Control Agency reported on Thursday, April 6. Fito and Zoosanitary (Agrocalidad).

The newspaper EL UNIVERSO requested detailed information from the Agency, after last Wednesday the Minister of Agriculture and Livestock, Eduardo Izaguirre, indicated that more than 1.5 million birds had been vaccinated and were about to reach 2 million.

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Agrocalidad also detailed that the province in which so far the most farms and birds have been vaccinated is Tungurahua, with the intervention in 23 farms and a total of 1,328,611 birds. The other provinces where there were outbreaks of the virus were Cotopaxi, Bolívar, Pichincha and Azuay.

In addition, from March 31 to this Sunday, April 9, six farms are in the vaccination process and at the moment eleven more farms are being evaluated for entry into this process, the Agency reported.

Meanwhile, Izaguirre also indicated: “There are eight million vaccines already in the country, we are waiting for them to continue arriving, because the idea is to already have that vaccination open so that everyone can vaccinate and thus have an even greater barrier.”

Regarding vaccines, Agrocalidad revealed that they authorized the importation of 12 million doses of the vaccine belonging to the German commercial house Boehringer, of which the first 6 million arrive in the country the week of April 11-14.

These are added to the first 4 million doses that arrived last February imported by the Macuna-Avimex company, a commercial alliance between a company from Ecuador and Mexico.

Regarding the vaccination process, Agrocalidad clarified that it is continuous and is not established by vaccination phases.

“The Agency’s objective is to provide immunity to birds that are found in focal and perifocal zones and risk zones that have been determined due to their type of production or geographical location,” the entity stated, which indicated that the minimum doses required to provide adequate immunity to birds are two doses, therefore, in vaccinated farms the revaccination process should continue.

Two new outbreaks in the Amazon region

Meanwhile, Minister Izaguirre revealed that after the start of the vaccination process, new outbreaks of the virus were detected, this time in the Amazon area, in addition to those that had already been detected before in the provinces of Cotopaxi (9 outbreaks), Tungurahua (7), Bolívar (2), Pichincha (1) and Azuay (1).

According to Agrocalidad, these new outbreaks were detected in the provinces of Pastaza and Napo in backyard properties.

Before, in the first five affected provinces, around 1,200,000 birds were slaughtered, representing 8% of laying birds nationwide, which affected the supply of table eggs, which since March increased their price to 28%.

Slaughter of 8% of the population of laying birds, due to avian flu, impacts up to 28% more on the price of eggs

What are backyard properties? The minister explained it: “They are the chickens that the small farmer has behind his house,” explained Izaguirre, who assured that the rate of appearance of new shoots has decreased.

“I think that a very important job has been done in the containment (…), I think that it has been done successfully, nothing is perfect, we have an army of people, there may be mistakes, but I do believe that it has been done effectively that containment and we are already vaccinating ”, said Minister Izaguirre.

Meanwhile, despite the results presented by the minister and Agrocalidad, from the egg producing sector they request detailed and permanent information on the vaccination process.

Marisol Molina, executive director of the Union of Egg Producers (Uniproh), indicated this Thursday, April 6, that they are requesting a meeting from Agrocalidad to be informed about the progress.

“They have not issued permanent formal information. We need to know which sectors have vaccinated, how many birds, and other details,” Molina said.

Could bird flu cause a COVID-like pandemic?

Meanwhile, Agrocalidad on its Twitter account posted information about meetings they held with representatives of the Poultry Farmers Association of Puéllaro (Pichincha), on April 4; and with the Association of Poultry Farmers of Cotaló (Asavico), from Tungurahua, this April 6, with whom they verified the progress of the vaccination process and the implementation of biosecurity measures in poultry farms.

Regarding the farms affected by the virus, Agrocalidad explained that they have already complied with the cleaning, disinfection and sanitary vacuum measures, and that they are currently in a sentinelization process, for the detection of viral circulation on the farms and thus way to guarantee the repopulation of birds without incurring new infections due to the presence of the virus in these sites. (YO)