Bird flu in SA: Seven things you need to know

The South African Poultry Association (SAPA) confirmed that farms in Mpumalanga experienced an outbreak of the highly infectious H7 avian flu strain, which is different from the H5N1 one that wiped out more than a million birds in the Western Cape the past few months.

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THE SUPER-INFECTIOUS BIRD FLU HAS WIPED OUT MILLIONS OF BIRDS

Here are seven things YOU need to know about the SUPER-INFECTIOUS bird flu:

HERE ARE THE SEVEN THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

• Two farms in Mpumalanga experienced an outbreak.
• The local flareups experienced this year had been spread by wild birds.
• The latest outbreak began on a small farm in Delmas about two weeks ago before spreading to a larger commercial farm in that area.
• According to Reuters, the Paris-based World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) said that a total of 9 500 farm poultry died in the latest South African outbreak, with one farm seeing 2 000 birds wiped out and the other 7 500.
• The poultry that died would have either been deliberately culled or perished from the virus, adding that SA had a “stamp-out policy” that would see poultry culled within a 3km radius of the infections.
• About 1.5 million birds had died in all three outbreaks – either through culling or expiring from the flu.
• Various outbreaks in recent did not just affect SA but also hit North and South America, as well as Europe.

Izaak Breitenbach, general manager of SAPA’s broiler division, told News24 that the problem was “by no means out of control”.

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THE PROBLEM WAS BY NO MEANS OUT OF CONTROL

“The concern, though, is that our wild birds are positive and therefore, there is a good chance for the disease to be spread from wild birds to chickens in more outbreaks than the three we’ve seen and in more parts of the country.”

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