April 29, 2013

 

Malaysia, Philippines, Kyrgyzstan ban poultry imports from China

 

 

Malaysia, the Philippines and Kyrgyzstan have temporarily banned all poultry and poultry products from China following an outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza.

 

Malaysia has banned all imported chicken from China and is urging its own poultry farmers to beware of H7N9 bird flu after Taiwan reported a case of the deadly strain, the first outside mainland China.

 

Malaysia will only resume imports of China's poultry when China is able to contain the new avian flu subtype and is declared free from the strain, Nazahiyah Sulaiman, spokeswoman at Malaysia's Department of Veterinary Services (DVS) said.

 

Wan Mohd Kamil Wan Nik, who heads the poultry safety division at DVS, said poultry farmers are already required to inform DVS if 3% or more of their chickens become sick. But the department will toughen its monitoring of local farmers and processors.

 

Malaysia announced the ban Friday (Apr 19), but it was effective as of April 23 after the first case of human infection with the virus was reported in the coastal province of Shandong, a major chicken-processing area in China. The province also accounts for the bulk of poultry that ends up in Malaysia, Abd Aziz Jamaluddin, director-general at DVS said on Friday.

 

Some 98 shipments with 4,800 tonnes of chicken meat already on its way to Malaysia before the ban will be thoroughly tested before "we let them in," Abd Aziz said. Malaysia imports about 22,000 tonnes of frozen chicken meat from China, accounting for 65% of the country's annual purchases from abroad. The rest comes from Thailand and the EU.

 

The import ban "will not have a major impact" on chicken meat processors in Malaysia, said an industry executive from the Federation of Livestock Farmers' Associations of Malaysia, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Processors will be able to make up the difference by buying more meat from local poultry farms. Consumption of chicken meat in Malaysia is high by global standards, with per-capita consumption around 77 pounds, reflecting in part subsidies and price controls. Chicken is the cheapest and most popular source of protein in the country because there are no religious restrictions against its consumption. Islam--the dominant religion in Malaysia--forbids the eating of pork while Hindus generally abstain from beef.

 

"Malaysia is self-sufficient in chicken meat production," the industry executive said, adding that some local broilers use imported chicken meat cuts from China because it is cheaper than domestic equivalents.

 

While in the Philippines, importation of poultry and poultry products from China is temporarily banned and the Department of Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala issued a memorandum order dated April 17 saying China's Ministry of Health has confirmed the presence of highly pathogenic H7N9 avian influenza in poultry in Shanghai and neighbouring regions on the eastern seaboard.

 

"There is a need to prevent the entry of pathogenic virus causing avian flu to protect the health of the local poultry population," he said.

 

Quarantine officials must be cautious of travellers who might bring poultry and poultry products from China, Alcala said.

 

The government has banned the importation from Shanghai of domestic and wild birds and their products, including day-old chicks, eggs, and semen from China. The Bureau of Animal Industry shall immediately suspend the processing, evaluation, and issuance of veterinary quarantine clearance or international veterinary certificate import permit for the importation of these commodities from China.

 

In Kyrgyzstan, authorities have banned imports of poultry from China over the spread of a new strain of bird flu, a spokesman for the Kyrgyz Economics Ministry said Friday (Apr 19).

 

"According to data from the director general of the international epizootic bureau, a new type of avian influenza, H7N9, has been registered among wild birds in the cities of Shanghai, Beijing and a number of Chinese provinces," Ermek Dzhanuzakov said.

 

"The state inspection for veterinary and phytosanitary safety has adopted a resolution to ban imports of birds and poultry products from China to reduce the risk of infection spreading" beyond China's borders, he said.

 

According to the Kyrgyz government, China is one of the largest importers of poultry and poultry products to the Central Asian country, after the US. Over 10,000 tonnes of chicken meat is brought to Kyrgyzstan from China every month.

A total of 114 people are believed to have recently come down with H7N9 in China. Twenty-three of them have died.

 

Russia's chief public health official Gennady Onishchenko said earlier in April that his consumer rights watchdog Rospotrebnadzor was considering restrictions on poultry meat imports from China.