Chronicle Editor
SOUTH Africa and Zimbabwe have culled more than one million chickens after an outbreak of avian influenza, which threatens food security in the region, the Food and Agriculture Organisation said.
“This is likely to have a knock-on effect on the availability of table eggs and poultry meat for consumers in the region,” the FAO said in an emailed statement Thursday.
“South Africa alone is destroying one million eggs a day from the affected farms.”
The outbreak of the H5N8 virus first started in the southern African region in May, after Uganda reported it in January. Poultry was the largest contributor to South Africa’s agriculture sector last year, generating more than $3.5 billion in gross income, according to the FAO.
The industry provides 64 percent of animal protein consumed in the country, excluding milk, according to an industry body.
Astral Foods Ltd., a poultry producer based in the capital, Pretoria, said last Wednesday it had detected a second outbreak of the disease at its facilities. The company’s shares have fallen by more than five percent on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange since it reported the first outbreak in June. — Bloomberg
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