Mexico bird-flu outbreak costs economy $50 mn

Published July 12, 2012

An outbreak of avian flu in the western state of Jalisco has claimed 2.5 million chickens and caused $50 million in losses, a representative of the Mexican poultry sector said Thursday.
"The industry will fail to produce $50 million, not only from the cost of the (dead) birds, but also from the intrinsic value of production, the generation of wealth and of indirect jobs in other fields," Cesar de Anda, vice chairman of the International Egg Commission, told Efe.
De Anda is part of an inter-institutional task force seeking solutions to the crisis spurred by the outbreak of the H7N3 virus in Jalisco, which accounts for 55 percent of Mexican egg output.
The latest report from Mexico's food safety agency, Senasica, says 2.5 million chickens have died of the flu or been slaughtered, while another 3.4 million birds are carriers of the virus.
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