January 8, 2015

After three non-commercial avian flu detections – a falcon in Washington State infected with H5N8 found in mid-December, the same strain appearing later in Oregon, and H5N2 appearing in a backyard chicken flock in Washington State on January 4, 2015 necessitating the culling of 50 birds, twenty two additional nations have joined the list of countries that are either banning or restricting the importation of U.S. poultry. Mexico and Singapore have been added to the list which is being maintained by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, and which includes Japan and Peru. Canada initially banned poultry from Oregon, but has since banned poultry from Washington also. The three markets of Sri Lanka, South Korea, and Thailand have banned all U.S. poultry imports from all regions of the country, while India has banned poultry imports since 2007 on avian flu contamination fears. Since December 2014, various avian flu strains have been detected in ten countries – Canada, China, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Russia, Great Britain, and Vietnam according to the World Organization for Animal Health, and since the beginning of January 2015 there have been five cases detected in humans. It is unclear how the cases detected in the Pacific Northwest will affect the U.S. industry in the long run, however it reflects the possibility that even non-commercial cases can have significant financial and trade implications.

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