Chile declares itself a country free of HPAI in poultry
The Minister of Agriculture, Esteban Valenzuela, informed that Chile has been declared as Free of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza in poultry, after the Agricultural and Livestock Service, SAG, complied with all the actions, surveillance and deadlines established by the World Organization for Animal Health, OMSA, closing the outbreaks of all commercial farms that were found to be positive for this disease that affects birds.
Minister Valenzuela pointed out that “Chile has declared itself free of Avian Influenza in poultry. This is tremendous news within the tragedy caused by the rains, especially for the O'Higgins Region, which is one of the most important white meat and poultry regions for the export process, job creation. This is one less problem and that is very important".
For his part, the National Director of the SAG, José Guajardo Reyes, highlighted the work carried out by the Service, since "thanks to the coordinated work between our officials throughout the country, and the collaboration of the industry, today we can say that we are free of this deadly virus in poultry. However, this does not mean that we let our guard down, because the SAG continues to work intensely and is deployed throughout the national territory to avoid new infections. We have increased biosecurity measures in the industry, working closely with them, which we believe will allow us to better face the next bird migration season, next spring".
Since the animal health emergency began in December of last year, the SAG has sampled nearly 25,000 industrial birds and more than 96,000 backyard ones. "With this declaration we have the possibility of continuing to reopen export markets for poultry products, such as China, Colombia, Korea and Peru, among other important destinations", added the national director of SAG José Guajardo Reyes.
Likewise, the president of the Association of Meat Exporters, Juan Carlos Domínguez, indicated that "the great development that the chicken and turkey meat producing sector has had in the last 20 years is mainly explained by the possibility that Chile has of export to the most demanding markets in the world. The fact that Chile has been able to recover its status as a HPAI-free country in just 5 months after the first outbreak confirms the great public-private work that is carried out to protect the health condition of our country. It only remains to congratulate the work carried out by the SAG teams throughout Chile and insist on the relevance of strengthening all biosecurity measures on farms to prevent the entry of this disease".
It should be noted that the animal health emergency due to avian influenza will continue throughout the national territory, for which reason the SAG reiterates the call to bird owners to take extreme biosecurity measures in their facilities, mainly locking up their birds to avoid contact of these with wild birds or others that could be affected, safeguarding their food and drinking water, to avoid contagion of their birds with highly pathogenic avian influenza.
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