Reuters — Saudi Arabia, the world’s second-largest importer of chicken broiler meat, has banned imports of poultry meat and egg products from Ontario due to the presence of avian flu on three Ontario farms.
The market was worth about $825,000 in 2014, representing 0.4 per cent of Ontario’s poultry exports, said Patrick Girard, spokesman for Canada’s agriculture and agri-food department, on Wednesday.
The virus on the three farms, all in southwestern Ontario’s Oxford County, is the highly pathogenic H5N2 strain, the same seen last December in poultry on a dozen farms in British Columbia.
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This strain has also been reported this year in the U.S. in Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington and Wisconsin.
Another strain, H5N8, has been identified in California and also in Idaho, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Earlier this month, Mexico, the biggest buyer of U.S. chicken, halted imports of live birds and eggs from Iowa.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency previously said that Hong Kong, Uruguay, Japan and Taiwan had restricted imports over the outbreak.
— Reporting for Reuters by Rod Nickel in Winnipeg.
