May 2, 2013

Papua New Guinea town of Wutung on the Indonesian border hopes that an outbreak of Newcastle bird disease can be contained within the area.

The president of the Papua New Guinea (PNG) Poultry Producers Association, Stanley Leahy said the outbreak is very concerning. He said it is the first time Newcastle disease has been found on the PNG mainland, although it is endemic in neighbouring Indonesia.

Leahy said the association wants the infected birds eradicated immediately and said it will compensate for losses.

The National Agriculture Quarantine and Inspection Authority (NAQIA) is surveying around Wutung and Leahy said the hope is the disease will not spread.

"NAQIA believes it should be relatively simple for them to contain if it is just in Wutung, which is why they are doing surveillance work at the moment to figure out just how far it has spread. The difference between the village situation and the commercial situation is significantly different in that we are not talking about hundreds of thousands of birds here; we are talking about 100s to possibly thousands of birds, to eradicate."