Bird Flu Strikes Mexico–2.5 mil Chickens Killed
Chickens at a factory farm in Mexico
Two and a half million chickens have been slaughtered in the last few weeks in 31 factory farms in Mexico in a race to prevent the spread of the latest strain of bird flu.
The Ministry of Agriculture says they were “sacrificed as a control and eradication measure.”
The outbreak of H7N3 bird flu was first detected a month ago in Jalisco state, and the government declared a national animal health emergency on July 2 as the virus was seen to be spreading quite aggressively through factory farms in western Mexico.
Mexican factory farms, you will recall, were the facilities that brought us the swine flu that swept across the United States in 2009. The H1N1 virus then spread into a global pandemic that claimed the lives of 17,000 people.
Swine flue was incubated in the pig factory farms of that same region when a number of other viruses, human flu and bird flu combined in the pigs, who had picked them up from insanitary staff worked and passing birds.
Experts continue to warn that it’s not a case of IF a deadly strain of bird flu will take hold; it’s a case of WHEN.
Mexico has now imported a million doses of vaccine from Pakistan and is developing a vaccine of its own that can be included in the bird feed at other factory farms.
P.S. Best way of avoiding getting sick: Switch to a plant-based diet.
Posted July 12, 2012, by Michael Mountain
Oh God, not this again. Here's hoping it doesn't escalate again.
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One terrible virus after another - and factory farming is largely to blame, as so many animals packed closely together makes the transmission of diseases very easy and fast. Ban factory farming! Don't eat animal flesh. Problem solved....(or rather could be, if people changed their habits)
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