August 9, 2004
South Africa Suspends Poultry Exports Following Bird Flu Outbreak
South Africa has suspended exports of its poultry and poultry products following an outbreak of bird flu in the Eastern Cape last week, while moving to cull all poultry in affected areas.
The country's Department of Agriculture said on Sunday that the outbreak remained confined to the Blue Crane municipal district of the Somerset East area, north of the city of Port Elizabeth.
Traces of a strain of bird flu, identified as H5N2, were found in samples taken last week from two ostrich farms in the Somerset East area.
"No indication of the disease had been seen anywhere else in the country," the department said in a news release.
A 30-km radius quarantine area has been declared around, where all poultry, including ostriches, were being slaughtered and destroyed, it said.
The police and the South African National Defense Force have cordoned the area off. Movement to and from the area was being restricted.
Fifteen farms, where 30,000 ostriches and a number of domestic chickens are kept, fell within this quarantine area.
It was not yet clear how the disease has been carried onto the farms. Mthobeli Mxotwa, spokesperson of the Eastern Cape Provincial Department of Agriculture, said earlier that the H5N2 strain was only dangerous to ostriches, not to humans.
Ahead of the overall ban of poultry exports, South Africa's agriculture authorities had stopped the export to the European Union, its major trading partner.
Singapore and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China have also stopped poultry imports from South Africa.
However, the country's agriculture officials believed that the outbreak and the export suspension would cause limited impact on the whole industry.
South Africa's annual poultry meat production is estimated at 950,000 tons. It accounts for 72 percent of world sales ostrich products including leather, meat and feathers, and has seen rising demands for ostrich meat from abroad.
