Agriculture detects the presence of Avian Influenza AH7N3 in two commercial poultry production buildings in Coahuila

Through epidemiological surveillance actions, which are permanently carried out by the National Service for Agrifood Health, Safety and Quality (Senasica) confirmed the presence of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza AH7N3 (IAAP) in two commercial poultry production buildings in Coahuila.

The agency of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development reported that laboratory tests carried out by technicians from the United States-mexico Commission for the Prevention of Foot-andmouth Disease and Other Exotic Animal Diseases (CPA) confirmed that the outbreak corresponds to the existing strain in some regions of Mexico since 2012.

The technicians of the General Directorate of Animal Health quickly applied the necessary anti-epidemic measures to deactivate the outbreak as soon as possible, They quarantined the affected farm and ordered the immediate slaughter of 70,000 birds from the two ships that had positive cases.located in the General Cepeda municipality, Coahuila.

The Senasica received the report of clinical suspicion of avian influenza on Thursday afternoon, immediately launched the emergency and prevention operation to contain the outbreak, for which sent technicians to the area to take samples in commercial production units and family poultry farms located within a radius of five kilometers around the affected farm, with the purpose of measuring the dimension of the outbreak.

Early Friday morning, the PCR tests applied in the Senasica laboratories revealed the presence of Avian Influenza AH7N3 and at this time work is being done on viral isolation for definitive confirmation and proceed to make the corresponding reports to the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE, for its acronym in French) and to commercial partners.

Among the measures adopted by Senasica, the immediate start of a vaccination campaign for birds located on family and commercial farms in neighboring communities stands out.

He also issued the instruction to reinforce the supervision tasks at the Verification and Inspection Points (PVI) located in Coahuila, in order to prevent the movement of live birds, their products and by-products without official control.