Christopher Hamilton-West, a veterinarian and academic at the Faculty of Veterinary and Livestock Sciences at the University of Chile, believes that it is difficult to project the economic impact, but he anticipates that there may be an overstock of chicken meat and an increase in value of the eggs.
Ma. Fca. Maldonado Wilson, Journalist.- Avian influenza has affected various poultry and laying hen farms in recent weeks, strongly affecting the production of poultry meat and eggs. This situation has even led to requests to protect the 17,000 jobs affected by this health crisis, reinforce biosecurity and see how to guarantee the supply of eggs.
This avian influenza crisis It has already caused the sacrifice of more than 850 thousand birds. He Dr Christopher Hamilton-Westa veterinarian specializing in veterinary epidemiology and active surveillance of the avian influenza virus from the University of Chile, explains that, although it is difficult to make a projection of the economic impact that the effects of avian influenza may have on products derived from birds , Yes, it can be estimated that, for the moment, there could be an overstock of poultry meat.
“At the moment, what do we know is happening and that they are very relevant things. First of When these outbreaks with a focus on commercial poultry begin to occur, other countries with which Chile has commercial relations close the bordersimports and exports from our country are suspended”, details the academic from the Faculty of Veterinary and Livestock Sciences of the U. de Chile.
The expert adds thatthe sector that produces poultry meat exports close to 30 or 40 percent of the production, so the impact can be super big. Perhaps, at first, we find ourselves with an overstock of products that can even cause prices to drop a littlebut depending on the duration of these events, we have to see how everything unfolds so that we can see how it will impact the same production of meat and eggs, and then obviously that will be reflected in prices.”
He too Director of the Department of Animal Preventive Medicine and the Veterinary Epidemiology Unit of the Faculty of Veterinary and Livestock Sciences of the University of Chile warns that the case of the egg industry is different, since “it is not an industry that is exporting, so it is not relevant on that side”. In this line, he states that the impact “can be relevant due to the number of farms that have had to close their activities due to the presence of the disease, which then have to go through all the disinfection and control processes, so that produce again,” he says. For the same reason, he affirms that this can cause a decrease in eggs on the market and an increase in their prices.
Is there an impact on human consumption?
Christopher Hamilton-West explains that “the first reason for culling birds is that they do not infect other birds” and that it has nothing to do with possible contagion to humans. However, he remembers that “You always have to be careful with what is not formal”in relation to the sale of products in informal commerce.
In this way, he posits that “We are not going to have an avian influenza problem with food consumptionthere is no history that it can be a route of transmission, less for people, who have a fairly low risk of infection ”, he maintains.
Those who could be at risk, Hamilton-West clarifies, are “people who handle birds that are sick or that have died from the disease or for all this production that is subsistence, for small producers, for the production that is called backyard, where these people generate food in their own home without validating the production. But the risk is from handling sick or dead animals that may have a high viral load and not from eating the food.”
