The UAE has tightened its rules for importing birds following the outbreak of avian influenza in the United Kingdom, adding the country to its blacklist of nations that have tested positive for the disease.
The UAE Ministry of Environment and Water announced yesterday that the import of live birds and poultry products from the UK's Suffolk region was indefinitely banned. The decision was taken by Dr Mohammed Saeed Al Kindi, the UAE Minister of Environment and Water, and comes into effect immediately.
But market sources said there was no reason to expect the ban to have any discernable impact on the UAE.
The UAE relies heavily on imported frozen chicken and eggs, but they are mostly supplied by Brazil, Denmark, France and Saudi Arabia, while the UK is not a main supplier of any poultry-related products.
And internally, "there will be no change in the country's comprehensive monitoring programme", said a source at the Environment Agency of Abu Dhabi.
The EAD is the main government body behind the strategy, which was set out in February 2006, to handle any possible outbreaks within the country, guard against entry of the disease, monitor potential infection sites such as wild bird sanctuaries and build capacity to handle outbreaks.
Suffolk is the first addition to the UAE's blacklist in some time. Last year, the country was regularly changing its list of countries from where poultry imports were not allowed, with France, India and Denmark finding themselves on the list.The ban on French poultry products and Indian eggs have since been lifted, but the moratorium on poultry from Egypt, Pakistan, China, Thailand, and many other nations, where the deadly dis ease has been found, remains.
The outbreak in the United Kingdom was discovered on February 1 when veterinarians from the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs were called to a Suffolk turkey farm to investigate "high mortality" in chicks.
The BBC reported that the first death happened on January 30, when 71 chicks died, while a further 186 died the following day and 860 died on February 1.
The total birds to die from the strain, which later proved to be H5N1, was 2,617.
By Zarina Khan
© Emirates Today 2007
