Ecuador declares animal health emergency due to avian influenza outbreak

The Ecuadorian government declared an animal health emergency in the Andean country due to an outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza and will slaughter some 180,000 birds to prevent the spread of the virus, the Ministry of Agriculture said on Wednesday. The first case of the H5 avian influenza outbreak was detected on a poultry farm in the Andean province of Cotopaxi, south of Quito, for which the authorities lifted an epidemiological fence over the weekend and activated an internal quarantine in possible infected areas. . The disease, commonly called bird flu, is often spread by wild birds that can spread the virus to poultry. "During the next 90 days, it will not be possible to mobilize birds, products and by-products of avian origin such as eggs, hens, chickens, among others, from the farms affected by the outbreak," the ministry said in a statement. "As part of the security protocol, the birds that are in the detected focus will be sacrificed; there are approximately ...