MUMBAI / TOKYO (Reuters) – Asian chicken farmers are fighting the region’s worst bird-flower revolution in years, with the deadly virus affecting farms stretching from Japan to India, rolling in some chicken prices and with no signs of a discount.
More than 20 million chickens have been destroyed in South Korea and Japan since November. The highly pathogenic H5N8 virus arrived last week in India, the world’s No. 6 producer, and has already been reported in 10 states.
Although bird flu is common in Asia at this time of year due to migratory bird patterns, new strains of the virus have become more deadly in wild birds, making countries on flight routes particularly vulnerable. injured, say experts.
Graphic: Bird flu countries –
“This is one of the worst incidents ever in India,” said Mohinder Oberoi, an Indian animal health expert and former adviser to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the DA (FAO).
“There are many diseases in crows and ducks. People are afraid of the disease in lazy-beds. They know they are flying long and think they can catch their chickens or even humans. ”
The Asian revolution comes as Europe suffers the worst bird flu revolution in years, and continues on the heels of COVID-19, which will hurt sales early chickens in some places amid concerns about fake diseases but are now rising in demand due to more home cooking.
Graphic: Total bird flu profiles by country and region –
Poultry prices in India fell by almost a third last week as cautious buyers, increasingly concerned about infection from the pandemic, kept the meat clean.
Avian flu cannot be transmitted through chicken pox, and the H5N8 virus is never known to have caught humans, but consumers still fear, said Uddhav Ahire, chairman of Anand Agro Group, a chicken company based in the western city of Nashik.
Live chicken prices are already as low as 58 Indian rupees ($ 0.79) per kilogram, below the cost of production, he said.
In South Korea and Japan, no impact on the market has yet been seen, officials said, with stronger demand for chicken meat for home-cooked food at lockout impact on prices.
VIRUS INFORMATION
The rapid and widespread spread of the latest upheavals means that this is one of the worst waves in Asia since the early 2000s.
In Japan, where an eruption from Chiba near Tokyo to more than 1,000 km (620 miles) away in Miyazaki on the island of Kyushu in just two months, new cases are still happening.
“We cannot say that the risk of the spread of avian flu has diminished as the wild bird migration season continues into March, or even in April in some cases,” said an animal health official in the ministry of agriculture. .
Graphic: A bird rebellion from Japan by prefecture –
The H5N8 viruses found in Japan and Korea are very similar to those spread through Europe in 2019, which evolved from viruses that were common in 2014, said Filip Claes, head of the Emergency Center FAO for Transboundary Animal Diseases (ECTAD).
A variety that is circulating in Europe since the end of 2020 is also causing great damage.
The new rays are causing more damage now that they are more deadly in wild birds, said Holly Shelton, a flu expert at the British Pirbright Institute.
“It is very clear that this virus has established itself in wild bird populations so it is now more likely to spread into poultry farms,” she said.
Graphic: Global chicken production –
Mandatory flu vaccination for chickens in China has protected the region’s top producer, even though the virus has killed wild swans there.
Indonesia, the No. 2 producer in Asia, is only a temporary turning point for wild birds, reducing the risk of infection, said Fadjar Sumping Tjatur Rassa, director of animal health at the Ministry of Agriculture.
However, the country has banned the import of live birds from countries with H5N8 and has established a surveillance system for early detection of the virus, he said.
Without major bird flight routes across Southeast Asia, countries such as Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia have so far erupted H5N8, but there are risks from the movement of people and goods.
“It will continue to be replaced by another virus,” said Shelton.
(Won $ 1 = 1,097.1400)
($ 1 = 73.1970 Indian rupees)
Reporting with Rajendra Jadhav in Mumbai, Aaron Sheldrick and Yuka Obayashi in Tokyo and Dominique Patton in Beijing. Additional statement by Sangmi Cha in Seoul and Bernadette Christina in Jakarta. Written by Dominique Patton. Edited by Richard Pullin