Poultry Industry Prepared for Bird Flu Threat

Last week, there was a meeting of industry stakeholders about the potential threat of avian influenza detected in neighbouring countries in Central America. The Belize Poultry Association’s Poultry Health Committee met with technical personnel from the Ministry of Agriculture, BAHA and OIRSA to review and update the emergency preparedness and response policy plan. Minister of Agriculture Jose Abelardo Mai told the media today that it is about staying alert and being proactive with bio-security practices to ensure that the bird flu is properly managed if detected in Belize.

Jose Abelardo Mai

Jose Abelardo Mai, Minister of Agriculture

“We have protocols in place, well-established. The moment it shows up, we will deal with it the right way – the scientific approach, we’ll deal with it. We should be okay. Our farms are of high biosafety processes in place and I think we should be okay. We have well-established protocols. We are aware that it is in the region and we have to be very careful of how we deal with it. But more than that, there is a banana disease. It was in Colombia, it moved over to Venezuela and now it is in other countries in South America and so we have to be mindful of all these disease. So it is important for us to stay alert and have our defences up.”