At least 1500 ostriches have died following the outbreak of ravaging bird flu in the Eastern Cape, and the health and agriculture department says 20 to 200 ostriches have died per day since the flu was first diagnosed on July 25.
Police and soldiers are manning roadblocks in the Somerset east area of the Eastern Cape to enforce a quarantine following an outbreak of avian influenza. "We have quarantined 15 farms in the area and extended the quarantine area radius to 30 kilometres," Mahlangu Segoati, national spokesperson for the department of agriculture, said today.
He said the movement of all poultry products, as well as humans, were being monitored as part of the precautionary measures put in place since the avian flu was detected.
Segoati said test results determining the nature of the virus were expected by the end of the week. A particular strain of the avian flu virus can be transmitted to humans and cause death.
Segoati said the department was also trying to trace the origins of the outbreak, which originally affected three, farms in the Somerset east region. The two farms currently affected were Endo and Glentana. Officials were expected to visit all 15 farms to carry out inspections on affected animals.
Bevan Goqwana, the Eastern Cape health MEC, says all energies would be channelled into protecting the public first and preventing the spread of the disease. He assured the public that the situation was "under control and strictly confined to birds".
The Western Cape department of agriculture has requested their Eastern Cape counterparts not to send birds for slaughtering to the Western Cape, until there was more clarity on the infection. "The disease could pose a serious threat to the export of ostrich meat from the ostrich exports abattoirs in the Western Cape," Cobus Dowry, the agriculture MEC, said. The European Union could "immediately revoke" the Western Cape's export status should the disease spread.
Dowry confirmed that a ban has been put in place on the movement of ostriches from the Eastern Cape to the Western Cape, with the situation to be reconsidered once a clearer picture emerged.
