SAO PAULO (Reuters) -Uruguay’s government on Wednesday confirmed its first case of bird flu and another case is being investigated in Argentina, according to local authorities.
“This is not a surprise, it was expected,” said Fernando Mattos, head of the ministry of agriculture, livestock and fisheries in Uruguay, which borders Brazil.
“We already had indications of the presence of the disease transmitted by migratory birds in local wildlife, local birds that, in contact with migratory birds, were in contact with a highly pathogenic virus,” he said.
Sources told Brazil’s Valor Economico newspaper another case was detected on a wild bird in Argentina’s northwestern province of Jujuy, with no official confirmation from Argentina authorities.
When asked about the reported potential case of bird flu in Jujuy, a source at Senasa, the Argentine food safety body, told Reuters that “we are waiting for test results in laboratory”, adding that details would be given at a press conference at 1800 GMT in the Secretary of Agriculture.
Brazil is the world’s largest chicken exporter and has never registered a bird flu case, though cases have affected some bordering countries like Bolivia and now Uruguay.
Brazilian Agriculture Minister Carlos Favaro will make a statement about bird flu, his press office said, at 1745 GMT on Wednesday.
Since late last year, the Brazilian meat industry has been on high alert and has stepped up measures to avoid local contagion of its massive commercial poultry population.
Avian flu, which has reached new corners of the globe, has become endemic for the first time in some wild birds that transmit the virus to poultry.
The Uruguayan case was detected on a black-necked swan on the coast of Laguna Garzon, according to the Valor report, which cited Uruguay’s agriculture, livestock and fisheries ministry.
(Reporting by Ana Mano and Maximilian Heath in Buenos Aires; Editing by Steven Grattan and Bernadette Baum)
