‘Eg Money’ surprised government… Easing bird flu killing standards

The government decided to reduce the “three kilometers of killing rules” for chickens and ducks, which were criticized for being excessive. The target of prophylactic killing, which was carried out when highly pathogenic avian influenza (AI) outbreaks in poultry farms, is reduced and adjusted to the same species as the species that occur within a 1km radius of all birds within a 3km radius of the farm that occurred for 2 weeks from the 15th.

The Central Avian Influenza Accident Control Headquarters announced a plan to promote quarantine measures against highly pathogenic avian influenza.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, the number of poultry that was slaughtered or scheduled for slaughter due to AI as of that day exceeded 28 million. Of these, the number of laying hens is 15 million, which is a quarter of Korea’s total laying hens. As the number of killings increased rapidly, some farmers in Gyeonggi Province refused preventive killings and filed administrative lawsuits, leading to controversy.

The Korean Broiler Association also issued a statement recently and appealed, “The damage to the poultry farms is growing like a snowball due to excessive killing, even though it is not spreading through horizontal propagation or dynamics.”

Park Byeong-hong, head of the food industry policy department of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, said, “Through this adjustment, the killing itself is expected to decrease. Depending on how AI occurs in poultry farms in the future, it can become a variable in maintaining the quarantine guidelines.” .

The range of the government’s killing regulations was within a radius of 500m, but was strengthened as it was revised to 3 km at the end of 2019. Even in cases where there is no traffic due to being blocked by mountains or there is no fear of infection due to wild birds, the 3km standard was indiscriminately adhered to. Experts criticized such measures as being too administratively convenient. Chairman Lee Sang-jin of the Egg Research Group said, “Even farms where AI has occurred and farms that are blocked by large mountains or located in neighborhoods where migratory birds don’t come well are being unilaterally set a 3km standard for killing.” He pointed out that the policy should be designed in more detail by reflecting the opinions.”

The government has accepted these criticisms and has relaxed standards for killing. Instead, it was decided to further strengthen quarantine and inspection. A total of 1,100 sterilization vehicles are mobilized to remove viruses inside and around the farm, and intensive sterilization is conducted daily around the farm and on the driveway. In addition, in order to detect AI-infected poultry individuals early, the inspection system is switched from simple inspection to detailed inspection, and inspection cycles for some types of livestock are also shortened. In order to quickly eliminate the potential risk, the egg-producing poultry farms will be additionally inspected in Japan from the end of this month to the beginning of next month, and the meat ducks will also be inspected in Japan this week. In addition, 24 million fresh eggs will be imported and supplied by the end of this month, including 5 million from the 15th to the 18th as a way to stabilize the supply and demand of poultry products.

In addition, the tariff on 139,000 breeding breeders is set at 0%, and it is also planning to manage the supply and demand of breeding breeders and chicks.

The government is still conservative on the introduction of the vaccine. Experts recommend introducing vaccines instead of killing them, but the government reiterated its previous position that it was difficult due to concerns about human infection.

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