Quito, 30 July (EFE) – The Ecuadorian government announced on Sunday that it had activated some biosecurity protocols following a new case of bird flu on a farm in the province of Cotopaxi, in the heart of the Andes.
The Phytosanitary and Veterinary Supervision Service (Agrocalidad) of the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock reported that it had taken action in response to the new outbreak of bird flu.
Among the programs and actions identified by Agrocalidad is a “quarantine and containment plan for detected farms” and a process of “epidemiological surveillance” by experts “in the focus and surrounding (adjacent) areas to avoid the spread of the outbreak .Virus spread to other sites”.
Likewise, it put qualified personnel on alert for eventual notification elsewhere and ordered the expansion of vaccination programs in Cotopaxi and the neighboring provinces of Tungurahua and Chimborazo.
Agrocalidad urges farms and farm managers who have received the first dose of the vaccine to receive the second dose as a biosecurity measure and to respect the timetable established by the entity within the framework of the country’s bird flu control strategy.
The agency assured that control of the disease must be understood as a joint effort between the poultry sector, central government and citizens.
According to official information, Ecuador found an outbreak of bird flu on farms in the Andes region last year, killing or slaughtering at least 1.2 million birds, and even infected a girl.Effie
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