The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (SADER) announced that the presence of High Pathogenic Avian Influenza AH7N3 (HPAI) was detected in a poultry farm in the state of Coahuila.
This strain corresponds to that existing in some of the regions of Mexico since 2012, as evidenced by tests carried out by the Mexico-United States Commission for the Prevention of Foot and Mouth Disease and Other Exotic Animal Diseases (CPA)
The presence of the strain was confirmed by the National Service for Health, Food Safety and Quality (Senasica) through epidemiological surveillance actions, which was located in two agricultural production warehouses in the General Cepeda municipality within the entity.
These ships correspond to hens with fertile egg laying, that is, birds used for the reproduction of chicks, as clarified by the Ministry of Agriculture.
In view of the detection of the outbreak, the General Directorate of Animal Health ordered a quarantine to be lifted on the affected farm and ordered the slaughter of around 70,000 birds corresponding to the two ships that tested positive, as part of the counter-epidemic measures to defuse the outbreak.
Senasica sent technicians to the area to take samples in the commercial production and family poultry units that were located within a radius of 5 kilometers around the affected farm as part of the emergency operation to contain the outbreak and determine its size.
In view of the contingency, the authorities, in coordination with the Ministry of Rural Development of the Government of the State of Coahuila, summoned the poultry farmers of the region to an urgent meeting for this Sunday, April 24, in order to review results of sampling carried out by CPA experts and agree on an action plan aimed at prevent the spread of the outbreak.
They also initiated a vaccination campaign for birds located on farms in neighboring communities as part of the measures adopted by Senasica.
In addition, the instruction was issued to strengthen the supervision tasks at the Verification and Inspection Points located in the entity in order to prevent live birds, their products and by-products from being moved without official control.
The early morning of last Friday, April 23, PCR tests applied in the laboratories of Senasica showed the presence of Avian Influenza AH7N3 and work is being done on viral isolation for definitive confirmation and thus proceeding to make the corresponding reports to the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), for its acronym in French) and business partners.
Despite the outbreak, they stressed that this event does not represent any significant negative effect on egg production in the country, since just over 298 million chickens are produced per cycle, which means that our country produces 1,758 million of these animals annually.
The impact of this event represents 0.003 percent of production. In addition to this, according to data from the National Union of Poultry Farmers, the Lagunera Region has an 8% share in the national production of chicken meat.
Finally, the Ministry of Agriculture reiterated that the virus is exclusive to birds, so there is no risk to humans, and urged poultry farmers in the area to report any suspicions in a timely manner, as well as to strengthen biosecurity levels on farms.
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