May 12, 2006

Malaysia's poultry industry loses US$0.42 billion in two months

Malaysia's poultry industry lost RM1.5 billion (US$0.42 billion) in just two months during isolated cases of bird flu in the country early this year, a news report said Friday.

Outbreaks of the H5N1 virus, potentially deadly to humans, in the states of Selangor, Perak and Penang in February and March this year caused farmed chicken sales to drop between 20 and 30 percent because consumers were scared off chicken, resulting in losses for some 6,000 breeders, The Star reported.

Yap Kim Hwah, an official with the Federation of Livestock Farmers Association of Malaysia, said the price of chicken plunged about 55 percent after the virus was found in dead chickens in the central Selangor state and later detected in two other states during random tests on poultry.

"Chicken farmers incurred huge losses, and some did not even have money to buy feed or rear new chicks," Yap said.

However, the association said the situation was returning to normal with current demand for chicken rising. Yap could not be reached immediately for further details.

The government has said it will declare the country free of the H5N1 strain by the third week of May if no new cases are discovered by then. The previous reported case was in March. Authorities have culled tens of thousands of birds to prevent the virus from spreading.

H5N1 has killed or prompted the slaughter of more than 200 million birds across Asia since 2003, and has recently spread to Europe, the Middle East and Africa. In some cases, the virus has jumped to people, leading to 115 human deaths, according to the World Health Organization.

Malaysia has reported no human infections.