Azerbaijan, Baku / Trend corr. S.Babayeva / The State Veterinary Service at the Azerbaijani Agricultural Ministry recommended that entrepreneurs temporarily abstain from importing poultry from the Rostov province of the Russian Federation due to bird flu being discovered in the region.
" Azerbaijan does not import poultry from the region of Russia, but taking into consideration the entrepreneurs who do, we warning them of the current situation in the region," a source in the State Service reported.
According to the Russian media, quarantine was announced in one of the biggest poultry plants of Rostov province in Gulay-Borisovski on 11 December. Some 35,000 died as a result of infection from 7 to 12 December which the Russian Scientific-Research Institute of Animal Protection identified as the H5N1 infection.
According to the Agricultural Minister of Rostov province Vacheslav Vasilenko, there are plans to destroy 450,000 chickens. "Some 50,000 chickens will be destroyed a day in order to prevent the virus from spreading," the Russian Vedemosti newspaper reported.
The RBKdaily newspaper stated that the virus may involve a range of poultry factories. Participants are afraid that there would be a repetition of what happened in 2005 when the bird flu was discovered in a range of Russian regions. The Russian Government imposed a ban on imported chickens and eggs both from the quarantine zone and some other regions. At that time The Azerbaijani State Veterinary Service immediately imposed a ban on the import of poultry after receiving official notification by the International Epizootic Bureau of the virus threat. "However, we have not received any such notification and will only impose a ban on the import of poultry once we have officially been notified by the Bureau," a source from the State Service reported.
Azerbaijan purchases sausage from Podmoscovye and Krasnodar regions, and poultry from Turkey, Brazil and the United States.
Under the data by the International Epizootic Bureau bird flu was discovered in poultry farms in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Czech, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Laos, India, Pakistan, Rumania, Russia, Poland, Turkey, Britain and Vietnam.