July 29, 2010

Ukraine shifts import ban from Romania to Russia

Ukraine has lifted the ban on Romanian poultry imports but has barred animal and meat imports from Russia, the State Veterinary Committee announced on (Tuesday) July 27.

The committee banned imports of animals and their meat prone to foot-and-mouth disease from Russia's Siberian Federal District, the Interfax-Ukraine.

In Romania, earlier news had reported two poultry farms as of April 2010 suspected to be positive for the avian influenza virus H5N1. It concerns a small farm, close to a poultry farm where H5N1 was detected two weeks after the first detection. Samples of dead chickens have been sent to a reference laboratory for further investigation.

The outbreak in Romania is the first in Europe since March 2009, when H5N1 was found in a wild duck in Bavaria, Germany. 2005 and 2006 saw large outbreaks of avian influenza in Romania. Millions of animals were culled then.