Poultry sales in SA ‘not affected by outbreak’
There has been no negative local market reaction to the outbreak of a highly contagious strain of bird flu, the South African Poultry Association says.
Despite speculation on social media, early indications were that poultry sales remained healthy, the association’s CEO, Kevin Lovell, said after a joint media briefing with the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries on plans to curb the outbreak of the disease.
Lovell, who sits on an international panel on avian influenza, insisted that the strain of the virus in SA was not dangerous to humans and that due to vigorous checks, it was highly unlikely that chickens already on the shelves would be infected. Furthermore, cooking killed the virus, he said.
The sale of live chickens would be restricted until local veterinarians declared the country’s poultry free of the disease, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Senzeni Zokwana said.
Vaccinating poultry against avian influenza would not be in the best interests of either the country or producers, Zokwana said. Vaccinating would create an endemic situation and affect export certification because trade partners wanted products that were free of avian influenza and where vaccination was not practised, he said.
A second case of avian influenza was confirmed at a farm in Standerton in Mpumalanga this week. The department said the virus was the same strain as the initial case reported on a farm near Villiers. The two farms had been placed under quarantine, with the affected birds culled and eggs destroyed.
About 260,000 birds had been culled, Zokwana said.
In order to contain the spread of the disease, buyers or sellers of more than five live chickens for any purpose other than direct slaughter at a registered abattoir would be subjected to conditions including registering with the Poultry Disease Management Agency. Farmers could sell only live chickens certified as healthy by a veterinarian or animal-health technician.