Portugal registers new case of bird flu
The Directorate-General for Food and Veterinary Medicine (DGAV) confirmed this Friday an outbreak of avian influenza virus infection at a facility that holds collection birds in Constância, in the district of Santarém.
In a statement, the DGAV, which is part of the surveillance zone of the primary focus, stopped in December in Vila Nova da Barquinha, a municipality in the parish of Santa Margarida da Coutada.
The Directorate-General for Veterinary Food also indicated “as measures to control the outbreak are already being those that are in accordance with the legislation in force”.
Measures, added, include the “inspection of countries in the region where the animals are protected, as well as notifying the world of protection animals, regarding the countries of protection, in three regions where all animals are protected. , and in the surveillance zone within a radius of 10 km”.
subscribe newsletter
On 31 December, an outbreak was confirmed in a farm in Peru, at Praia do Ribatejo, Vila Nova da Barquinha, with today’s confirmation of dead birds in Constância and the existence of new highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza in mute ducks, found dead in the riverside park of Vila Nova da Barquinha on January 11, do not constitute new outbreaks of the existing disease, rather, linked to the existing outbreak.
“The latest cases detected in Vila Nova da Barquinha and now in Constância do not constitute foci since new ones were included in the surveillance zone detected at the time of the detected primary outbreak” in December, Susana Pombo, from DGAV, told Lusa.
According to the official, Portugal currently has five active outbreaks of infection by bird flu, having been lifted as restriction measures in Palmela, in the municipality of Setúbal, after, in early December, having detected an outbreak of bird flu on that farm. locality and after 30 days without registering new situations.
The first two outbreaks were detected on December 1st, in a domestic poultry farm in Palmela, and on December 23rd, on a turkey farm in Óbidos, with around 18 thousand birds, there being “a link” between this farm and the third outbreak. , confirmed on December 31, in Vila Nova da Barquinha, on a farm with around six thousand turkeys.
On January 4th, a fourth outbreak of avian influenza was detected in a chicken and duck farm in Santiago do Cacém, in the district of Setúbal, and on the following day a fifth outbreak was confirmed in Alpiarça, in a wild goose, which was added to the on 11 January a sixth outbreak, in Peniche, detected in a seagull.
In view of the “epidemiological situation”, DGAV argues that it is important to “comply with and strengthen biosafety rules, as well as current poultry production practices, good poultry production practices, as well as contacts between domestic and wild birds”.
“It is still extremely important to immediately notify any hypothesis, in order to allow rapid and effective control of disease measures”, he adds.