Border closed in S. America amid bird flu fears
Venezuela today closed its border with Colombia across three western states amid concerns about a mild strain of bird flu detected in the neighbouring country.
The Agriculture Ministry ordered the closing of borders in the states of Tachira, Zulia and Apure to prevent the virus from crossing over into Venezuela, the state-run Bolivarian News Agency reported.
“We’re going to keep the border closed until the Colombian government releases official information and corrects the problem,” Gloria Hernandez, a director of animal safety for the ministry, was quoted as saying.
Venezuela – along with Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia and Panama – earlier this month blocked imports of Colombian poultry products as a precaution after bird flu was detected there at three farms in Colombia’s western Tolima state.
But Colombian Agriculture Minister Andres Felipe Arias said the virus was a mild strain of avian influenza, and not the deadly strain H5N1 that has killed more than 60 people in Asia since 2003 and recently spread into Romania, Turkey and Russia.
Colombia exported $US13m worth of poultry products last year, the vast majority to Venezuela.
Venezuela’s ambassador to Colombia, Carlos Rodolfo Santiago, said last week that his country planned to send a group of health experts to Colombia shortly to examine the situation.
The border closings came as health officials from six Andean nations gathered Friday in Lima, Peru, to begin co-ordinating a regional contingency plan to prevent the spread of bird flu.
Officials from Peru, Chile, Bolivia, Colombia and Venezuela were discussing unified border controls and a joint response amid concerns that migratory birds could spread the flu to Latin America.
Health officials say humans cannot contract the virus from eating properly cooked chicken. Most human cases of bird flu have been linked to direct physical contact with sick birds.
