Brazil farmers officials step up controls where bird flu was found on commercial farm

MONTENEGRO, Brazil - Officials and chicken farmers in Brazil have stepped up sanitary controls close to where the country’s first case of avian influenza was found on a commercial farm, while racing to track the virus to stop its spread.

Brazil is the world’s largest chicken exporter.

News on May 16 of the first case of highly pathogenic avian influenza found on a commercial farm in Montenegro, in Rio Grande do Sul state, triggered trade bans for Brazilian chicken by China and the European Union, as well as fellow Latin American countries Mexico and Argentina, among others.

The Brazilian authorities at the state and federal level have scrambled to prevent bird flu from spreading.

On May 17, the government of Minas Gerais state said it destroyed 450 tonnes of eggs from Rio Grande do Sul.

Eggs from the affected farm were traced to locations in Minas Gerais, Parana and Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil’s agriculture ministry said, adding they would be destroyed.

Some 1.7 million eggs have been destroyed in Rio Grande do Sul, according to the state’s department of agriculture.

“We don’t know what’s going to happen, if there’s going to be stagnation, if we’re going to keep producing – we don’t know anything,” said Mr Celso Zweibricker, 65, a chicken farmer in Montenegro.

With 76,000 birds to protect, Mr Zweibricker stepped up sanitary controls, denying access to visitors and insisting that chicken-feed deliverers could only enter the site with clean boots.

“We don’t want anyone to come in,” Mr Zweibricker said.

The outbreak of highly infectious bird flu that started in 2022 has devastated production of chicken and eggs in the United States, leading to the culling of millions of poultry birds, and has spread to dairy farms across the US.

On May 17, teams from Vibra Foods,