Another year to recover from bird flu outbreak, says SA Poultry Association
The SA Poultry
Association says it is still working to recover costs associated with importing
fertile eggs for hatcheries.
The industry has been battling two strains of avian influenza, H5N1 and H7N6.
The association's Abongile Balarane says the industry lost 30% of its production due to the outbreak.
ALSO READ: First human case of H5N2 bird flu died from multiple factors: WHO
He estimates it will take time for producers to recover:
“At this stage, we are estimating another 12 months at most, and the situation will be back to normal. We will have our normal production of about 27 million hens sometime in the second half of 2025."
Balarane says the good news is that there haven't been any cases reported in the past five months.
"The last outbreak was reported in January. What has been happening is that we have been monitoring the situation.
We are now in the cold season of the year, and we haven't recorded any case at this stage, so I think this is a seasonal trend of the virus.”
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