The governments of Ecuador and Peru have declared an animal health emergency due to outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza in domestic birds and will slaughter the specimens found in the outbreaks.
Ecuador will cull some 180,000 birds to prevent the spread of the virus, the Ministry of Agriculture said earlier this month.
“During the next 90 days, it will not be possible to mobilize birds, products and byproducts of avian origin such as eggs, hens, chickens, among others, from the farms affected by the outbreak,” the ministry said.
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“As part of the security protocol, the birds that are in the detected focus will be sacrificed; there are approximately 180,000 birds.”
Peru indicated it will carry out these same actions, but did not specify in the statement from the National Agrarian Health Service the number of birds that will be slaughtered because they are in the detected outbreak.
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Within its measures, Peruvian health authorities ordered that the slaughtered birds be buried at least two metres deep.
Doris Rodríguez, an official with Peru’s state National Forestry and Wildlife Service, told local radio station RPP that some 13,800 birds have died from bird flu, including some 10,000 pelicans, mainly in the north and centre of the country.
The first case of the H5 avian influenza outbreak in Ecuador was detected on a poultry farm in the Andean province of Cotopaxi, south of Quito, for which the authorities lifted an epidemiological fence over the weekend and activated an internal quarantine in possible infected areas.
