Mexico has reported its first outbreak of highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza on farms this season, the World Organization for Animal Health (WHO) said in a report on Thursday, a month after local authorities declared the country’s poultry areas free of the virus.
Governments and the poultry industry are concerned about the spread of the highly contagious virus, which has ravaged poultry farms around the world in recent years, disrupting supplies, driving up food prices and posing a risk of human-to-human transmission.
The outbreak detected in Sonora state killed 15,000 of 90,000 laying hens and the remaining birds were culled, Paris-based WHOA said, citing a report from Mexican authorities.
“As a result of passive epidemiological surveillance carried out by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the first outbreak of highly pathogenic H5 avian influenza of the season was reported in a poultry production unit in the city of Cayem, Sonora state,” he noted.
Mexico’s animal safety authorities confirmed the first case of H5N1 avian influenza infection in wild birds early last month, and announced on the same day that the country’s poultry farms had been cleared of the virus.
The Department of Agriculture reported on Wednesday afternoon that the spread of H5N1 avian influenza had been detected at a second commercial farm in this part of the country’s north, three kilometers from the first farm where the virus was confirmed, and with a population of approximately 90,000 birds. reduce”.
After receiving the notification from the manufacturer, “the technical staff of the DGSA United States-Mexico Committee for the Prevention of Foot and Mouth Disease and Other Exotic Animal Diseases (CPA) have begun to take corresponding epidemic prevention measures,” he explained.
The local Directorate General of Animal Health (DGSA) declared a quarantine and began extermination, cleaning and disinfection work at the site, which houses 54,000 birds that are at the end of their production cycle.
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