The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food said yesterday that it will start taking more steps to stop the spread of the avian influenza virus today, November 10th. The risk has increased this week due to a rise in cases in Europe, particularly among wild birds, as they migrate and temperatures drop.
The precautions include keeping poultry in locations that are considered to be at high risk and under observation, which is a total of 1,199 towns. In the Valencian Community, this will affect 138 towns. The rest of the farms are in Andalusia (197), Aragon (128), the Canary Islands (1), Cantabria (31), Castile and León (250), Castile-La Mancha (18), Catalonia (224), the Community of Madrid (16), Extremadura (99), Galicia (40), the Balearic Islands (14), La Rioja (6), Navarre (12), the Basque Country (6), the Principality of Asturias (8), the Region of Murcia (11), Ceuta, and Melilla.
Luis Planas’s department has put into place all the preventative measures against avian influenza that were required by Order APA/2442/2006, on July 27th. The autonomous communities agreed with this action. In areas of exceptional risk and special surveillance, there are rules that say you can’t use birds from the orders Anseriformes and Charadriiformes as decoys, and you can’t raise ducks and geese with other birds.
You can’t raise chickens outside either. The Ministry of Agriculture has made it clear, nevertheless, that if this isn’t possible, the right authority can allow keeping poultry outside by putting up bird netting or another mechanism that keeps wild birds from getting in.
In this instance, the birds will have to eat and drink within the buildings or in a shelter that keeps wild birds out and keeps them from touching the food and water meant for farm birds.
It is also against the law to offer poultry water from reservoirs that wild birds can get to, unless the water has been treated to kill any avian influenza viruses that could be there.
So, the outside water tanks that some birds need for their health will be safe from wild waterfowl.
Animal concentration centres, like livestock shows, exhibitions, demonstrations, and cultural festivities, as well as any other place where a lot of poultry or other types of captive birds are kept, are not allowed to have poultry or other types of captive birds.
For the rest of the territory, Agriculture has repeated the need for very strict biosecurity measures on poultry farms, especially those that keep wild birds away from the birds, as well as for passive surveillance to be stepped up and for any suspected disease to be reported to the official veterinary services as soon as possible.
Author: Derek Appleton
Other Articles
No Comment! Be the first one.