February 27, 2006

Brazilian minister says country not immune to bird flu

Brazil Health Minister Saraiva Felipe said the country is not immune to bird flu, government news agency Agencia Brasil reported Thursday.

Although the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu, currently spreading throughout Europe, has never been found in Brazil, Felipe told Agencia Brasil that "impeding the virus from coming here is lunacy".

"The one thing that helps Brazil is that we do not import live birds," Felipe said.

Felipe was quoted at Sao Paulo's Instituto Butantan, a private, scientific research institution currently working on a vaccine for H5N1. The institute received 3.1 million real (US$1.44 million) to experiment on bird flu vaccines.

Brazilian Poultry Union President Clovis Puperi said he doubted Brazil would have any problems with bird flu this year because migratory birds that can transmit the disease already arrived back from North America in October and November.

"There were no cases of the disease reported yet and those birds have been here for a long time," Puperi said.

Brazil is the world's leading chicken exporter by volume.