A quarantine has been declared due to bird flu at a poultry farm in Stavropol Krai, but the risk to the market is considered to be low.

At the poultry farm "Preobrazhenskaya" in the Budennovsky district of the Stavropol Territory, a focus of highly pathogenic avian influenza was detected. In connection with this, the governor of the region, Vladimir Vladimirov, declared a quarantine. Restrictive measures have been introduced in the village where the factory is located, as well as in the endangered zone and in the observation zone within a radius of 15 kilometers from the focus. The veterinary department has approved a plan to eliminate the disease focus.

Albert Davleev, President of Agrifood Strategies, commented to Agroinvestor that this particular outbreak of avian flu does not have a serious impact on the market due to the small production volume at this factory. It specializes in egg production with a planned capacity of 280 million eggs per year, as indicated on the "Preobrazhenskaya" website.

According to Davleev, the autumn-winter period has always been critical for poultry farmers. Especially in November, when the majority of disease outbreaks in poultry farms worldwide are recorded - from small-scale and personal farms to large enterprises. This year, the first outbreaks of avian flu have already been reported in Canada, the USA, Japan, Turkey, South Korea, and several European countries, where there have been no cases of avian flu over the past six months, the expert notes.

Russia is constantly under threat of avian flu due to the large migration routes of birds through its territory, including the coasts of the Black and Caspian Seas. These regions have traditional wintering grounds for migratory birds due to the mild climate. This makes the Krasnodar and Stavropol Territories, the North Caucasus, and neighboring regions more risky for industrial poultry farming, as it is difficult to exclude the entry of the virus from the natural environment. The expert adds that the Urals and the Far East are also risky regions, as two outbreaks of avian flu have already been registered in the latter - on Sakhalin and Kamchatka.

 

In October, an outbreak of highly pathogenic avian flu was detected in a small farm on Sakhalin. A state of emergency was declared in Kamchatka due to an outbreak of avian flu at the only poultry farm "Pioneerskoe", where about 200 thousand chickens were kept.

At the same time, the head of Agrifood Strategies emphasizes that the situation in Russia is no worse, and perhaps even better, than in other regions of the world. This is due to the adoption of strict sanitary and veterinary measures and increased responsibility of poultry farmers. He notes that predicting the development of the disease spread situation over the next six months is difficult due to a variety of factors. However, it can be asserted that the risks of significant losses from avian flu outbreaks in Russia have been minimized thanks to the rich experience in combating the disease and strengthening biosecurity at enterprises.

Davleev states that in global poultry farming, including Russia, vaccination against highly pathogenic avian flu is planned. However, there is still no consensus in the global poultry community on this issue, as preventive vaccination against one strain of the virus may open the door to other strains, and the use of antibodies to the vaccinated virus often complicates threat identification. For this reason, Russian poultry farmers, together with scientists and the Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance, approach this issue responsibly and continue to develop scientific research on new vaccines and create sufficient reserves for their use when necessary.