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Egypt to resume poultry exports after 14-year struggle with bird flu

Certain Egyptian poultry facilities have finally won accreditation as bird flu-free.
TO GO WITH AFP STORY BY INES BEL AIBA: An Egyptian poultry vendor weighs chicken for a customer at his shop in Damietta, 195 km north of Cairo, 05 December 2008. In the Nile Delta town, where Egypt's latest fatal bird flu victim Hanem Atwa Ibrahim lived, inhabitants fear the authorities more than the virus. Most of the inhabitants of the Ezbet el-Lahm district pay scant attention to the government's campaign against the H5N1 virus which, after a summer respite, killed four people, all women, in the space of

CAIRO — Egypt’s Minister of Agriculture and Land Reclamation al-Sayed el-Quseir announced June 14 that the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) has lifted the ban on poultry exports from Egypt. Certain facilities shown to be free of the bird flu will be allowed to resume poultry exports.

The outbreak of avian influenza (H5N1) in 2006 had dealt a heavy blow to the Egyptian poultry exports, causing massive losses. Almost two decades after, the country appears to have partially contained the epidemic and achieved self-sufficiency by producing around 1.4 billion birds and around 13 billion eggs per year. Investments in the sector exceed 90 billion Egyptian pounds (about $6 billion).

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