Global Animal Health Crisis: Multiple Outbreaks Threaten Beef and Poultry Industries

A cluster of simultaneous animal disease outbreaks is putting a significant strain on the global beef and poultry industries. The crises involve the detection of the mad-cow disease in Canada, a confirmed case of the disease in an Alberta-based cow, and bird flu outbreaks in Romania and the United States. The situation has prompted a re-evaluation of the beef export program to Japan and a national training program to prepare the poultry industry for a catastrophic disease outbreak.

Key Takeaways:

• A senior U.N. official warned that countries must speed up their preparations to deal with an "inevitable" human influenza pandemic, which could strike soon.
• A national training program on proper procedures for euthanasia and disposal of poultry is underway to prepare industry participants and others in the event of an outbreak of a catastrophic disease.
• The U.S. government is re-evaluating the beef export program specifically tailored for shipping product to Japan after a failure to stop prohibited vertebral column from being sent in a veal shipment.
• A group of Missouri cattlemen who volunteered for a one-of-a-kind tagging program were especially stung when Japan closed its borders to U.S. beef.
• Greek Cypriot authorities are disinfecting vehicles coming from the Turkish-occupied north where two suspected bird flu cases were detected among poultry.
• Heinz Frozen Foods is voluntarily recalling about 1,561 pounds of a prepared frozen food product because it contains an allergen, milk protein, that isn't identified on the package.

Statistics:

• Five chickens died of heat exhaustion on two small properties in Bahia, Brazil Sunday, according to state animal health officials.
• A senior executive at French diagnostic and biotech company BioMerieux SA plans to launch a bird flu test in two days.
• Japanese Finance Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki said that U.S. beef producers need to carefully follow Japan's rules when exporting beef to the country.
• The European Union's policy-making arm recommends applying a special label to poultry, beef, pork, and fish produced by so-called humane farming methods.
• Canada has found its fifth suspected case of home-grown mad-cow disease, according to reports.

Sources:

• Dow Jones Commodities News via Comtex
• Dow Jones
• AP (Associated Press)
• Dow Jones Newswires
• PRNewswire-FirstCall
• BioMerieux SA
• Japanese Finance Ministry
• European Union's policy-making arm
• AP (Associated Press)