Avian flu: 11 countries in the Americas have cases and surveillance increases in Argentina

With the objective of prevent the entry of bird flu in Argentina, the Secretary of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries of the Nation, Juan Jose Bahilloand the Minister of National Security, Hannibal Fernandez, They held meetings with authorities from Senasa, INTA, the National Gendarmerie (GNA), the Airport Security Police (PSA), representatives of Customs, Immigration and the Ministry of Health.

Last week outbreaks were reported of the disease in Bolivia, country that joins the American list with detected outbreaks made up of Canada, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, United States, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Peru and Venezuela.

Bahillo stated that “this is a sensitive issue for our productive sector. Here we are together with the Senasa and INTA who already have a status of situation and we are carrying out actions to work on all fronts in prevention measures”.

One of the inmates died due to “the parrot’s complaint” and another remained in intensive care

On the other hand, the vice president of Senasa, Rodolfo Acerbi, expressed that “it is fundamental work on early detection alert and early, through rapid notification of any bird mortality and for this it is essential to work together and add the efforts of the private sector, where biosecurity measures are very important, and of the community, which can notify any suspicion”.

Last week, Senasa decided to consolidate on the northern border of Argentina the reinforcement of epidemiological surveillance to prevent avian influenza (AI) from entering the country, following the detection of the disease in the department of Cochabamba, in the center of the neighboring Plurinational State of Bolivia.

Senasa actions for the avian complaint

As part of the actions promoted in the framework of the preventive alert that governs the country, The health agency mobilized specialized agents from its National Directorate of Animal Health and from other regions, to the offices located on the border with Bolivia in the provinces of Salta and Jujuy.

In addition, they took care of continuing to raise awareness -through direct information to the population and the productive sector- about the importance of reporting the discovery of birds with symptoms and deaths (whether production, backyard or wild), reinforce biosecurity on commercial farms, and continue working with other public entities to monitor and control the movement of birds, products and by-products of birds.

BM / DE