The H7N3 avian flu outbreak in Jalisco, Mexico, has caused the loss of 2.5 million chickens and $50 million, according to reports in the country's poultry sector.
Jalisco accounts for 55 percent of the country's egg output, and while Japan (Mexico's main foreign customer for eggs) has resumed imports, European and African countries have continued their bans. Roughly 3.4 million birds are currently carriers of the virus, according to reports from Mexico's food safety agency, Senasica.
Authorities are calling for more healthy chickens to be vaccinated against H7N3 to stop the spread of the virus, and private labs in Mexico are working to produce 80 million doses in the next three weeks to meet demand. The National Union of Poultry Farmers of Mexico will administer the vaccines in coordination with Senasica. The first doses will be administered in poultry farms located within the sanitary barrier, in healthy bird populations that are low-health risk. The farms that administer the vaccine will remain under quarantine until the end of the productive life of birds, and then carry out depopulation so they can eradicate the virus.
