Argentina Holds Poultry Exports As First Industrial Case Of Bird Flu Confirmed

Argentina's agricultural secretary announced on Tuesday that the country has identified its first incidence of bird flu in industrial poultry.

This prompted the suspension of exports of avian products and increased concerns that the disease would spread and harm Argentina's exports.

According to Secretary Juan José Bahillo's tweet, the case was found in the low-poultry density Rio Negro province in the south.

"Our poultry products continue to be safe for Argentines. The suspension of exports responds to the requirements of international regulations," he said, adding that the measure from the country's food safety agency aimed to avoid further spread.

The majority of the 25 confirmed cases so far have been in wild birds. Mid-February saw the first reports of cases, which prompted the government to declare a sanitary emergency, Reuters reported.

Argentina exports poultry products worth a little over $350 million annually.

Health experts in the Southeast Asian country of Cambodia say that recent cases of bird flu detected in two of its villagers, one of which was fatal, show no sign of human-to-human transmission, allaying concerns about a public health emergency, reports Mint.

Shortly after testing revealed she had Type H5N1 bird flu, an 11-year-old Cambodian girl from a village in the southeastern province of Prey Veng passed away on Feb. 22 at a hospital in the capital, Phnom Penh.

Her father tested positive for the virus the day after her death, but showed no strong symptoms and was released Tuesday from a Prey Veng hospital where he had been kept isolated, the Health Ministry said.

He was sent home after three negative tests. The two were the only villagers among more than two dozen tested who were found to carry the virus, the ministry said in a statement.

The father and daughter had both "been infected from poultry at their village, and there is no indication or evidence that there was infection from father to daughter," the Health Ministry reported after an investigation.

Experts from the World Health Organization, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and their Cambodian counterparts came to the conclusion that they were directly exposed to birds, according to Ly Sovann, a spokesman for the Cambodian Ministry of Health.

In an interview published Tuesday on the website of the scientific journal Nature, a Cambodia-based virologist said the girl who died had been infected with a different strain of the bird flu virus than the one that has been spreading worldwide for the past year and a half among wild and domestic birds.

Fears are rising about bird flu's potential to spark a human pandemic, as well as its destruction of wildlife and farmed birds.

The following are certain precautions that could be taken to control its spread.

Protecting poultry
To prevent the spread and severity of bird flu, certain nations, particularly China, immunize poultry. At the moment, other governments around the globe are either enacting vaccination regulations or considering doing so.

Stopping a human pandemic
Increased surveillance of people who work in the poultry sector to make sure anyone who becomes infected is quickly detected and isolated.

There are several methods for battling the illness if avian flu does cause a pandemic in humans.

There are approved human vaccines against avian flu, and the World Health Organization keeps track of H5N1's development so that these vaccines can be suitably updated.

Conserving Wildlife
Wildlife experts are attempting to determine which wild bird species are most seriously impacted by the avian flu and the implications this has for the disease's spread.

This discovery could help farmers anticipate when bird flu might be affecting them if, for example, it is combined with when specific birds are known to move.

It will also help scientists better target conservation actions.

That knowledge could help farmers target measures to protect poultry.