Roughly 120 000 birds have died or been destroyed on two Western Cape poultry farms due to avian influenza.
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This comes with the provincial veterinary services issuing a warning on Wednesday for the public and the agriculture sector to be vigilant after bird flu cases were detected at commercial layer farms in the Paardeberg area, the Drakenstein and Swartland local municipalities.
According to Agriculture MEC Ivan Meyer, the first outbreak was confirmed on 21 April and the second four days later.
The MEC said the exact strain of the virus was still unknown and was being investigated.
‘Highly pathogenicity avian influenza outbreaks have been occurring worldwide and were detected in poultry in other South African provinces earlier in 2023 and throughout 2022. However, the Western Cape has not seen the virus in commercial poultry since early last year,’ said Meyer.
‘Avian influenza is controlled under the Animal Diseases Act, 35 of 1984. Any suspicion of the disease in wild or domestic birds must be reported to the local state veterinarian.’
With no vaccine or treatment currently available for the highly pathogenic avian influenza, current practice requires culling infected birds to limit the spread of the disease.
Last month, managing director of Hume International, Fred Hume, urged the government to urgently agree on a heat treatment protocol for mechanically deboned meat (MDM) in case the bird flu outbreaks reported in many countries spread to Brazil, according to IOL.
‘The global bird flu outbreak is posing a significant risk to the country’s food security, especially given the dependence of many households on chicken as an affordable protein. The outbreak has already reached countries such as Argentina – which represents real cause for alarm given that the country is neighbours with Brazil, the biggest source of imported chicken in South Africa. Brazil supplies the country with more than half of our imported poultry meat,’ said Hume.
Any suspicion of bird flu in wild or domestic birds can be reported to the local state veterinarian.
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