The Minister of Agriculture, Limber Cruzreported yesterday that the Dominican authorities remain vigilant against the bird fluespecially at a time when several countries in the region, the most recent case being that of Cubahave detected this disease in their territories.
The official explained that some of the arranged measures to avoid the disease is the installation of mats, incinerators and quarantine areas in airports and ports. Similarly, the authorities use dogs that recognize any food that could carry the virus.
“Tomorrow (today), I am going to inaugurate one of the arches that we are putting in the ports; I will specifically go to Manzanillo,” said the minister, citing the actions taken.
However, the official admitted the difficulty in controlling the entry of the virus from other sources, such as migratory birds.
“These birds do not pay for passage, nor do they come by plane or ports,” he added, while saying that more developed countries such as Japan or United States they have already been affected by the virus.
“We have made a lot of efforts so that this does not happen, but the migratory birds they come and you have no way to control it. We hope that with the biosecurity that we have in our operations, such as raising laying hens and chicken breeders, we hope that this disease will not reach us,” the official concluded.
Embassy highlights assistance from the United States
Within the framework of the presentation of the program of Resilient Agriculturethe charge d’affaires of the United States Embassy in the Dominican Republic, Robert Thomas, cited the collaborative actions that the North American nation has carried out in order to assist the country with the virus.
The business manager of the U.S. Embassy in the Dominican Republic, Robert Thomas, pointed out that the United States Department of Agriculture has helped the Department of agriculture to raise the level of vigilance and make decisions when threats from these viruses are presented.
“We have experts from the Department of Animal and Plant Health at the Embassy who work directly on issues such as flu avian and porcine”, added the diplomat.
The statements by Cruz and Thomas came at a time when the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that in recent weeks outbreaks of bird flucaused by the H5N1 virus, in mammals such as mink, otters, foxes and sea lions, a phenomenon that he described as “worrying”.
