Poultry firms react to avian flu risk
A number of poultry producers and suppliers in HCM City have taken measures to protect their farms and slaughterhouses from the risk of an avian flu epidemic spreading to Vietnam given a worrying outbreak in China.
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Nguyen Thanh Phi Long, technical director at Long Binh Livestock Co Ltd in HCMC’s District 1, said the company has maintained a biological safety process at its farms and slaughterhouses since temperatures in southern Vietnam began falling several months ago. Poultry is vulnerable to disease infections around this season, Long noted.
However, Long said the preventive measures against dust, insects and diseases have been intensified at the company’s farms in line with Vietnamese Good Agriculture Practice (VietGAP) standards amidst the avian flu outbreaks in regional countries.
He added demand for chicken usually picked up after the Lunar New Year holiday (Tet) but dropped 10-20% compared to the same period last year due to fears of the regional avian flu outbreaks.
The director of a big chicken processing firm in HCM City said his company was concerned about the ongoing China avian flu outbreak.
The enterprise has strengthened controls on chickens supplied by farms and partners and only bought chickens with quarantine stamps to ensure its products are safe for consumers. A stringent food safety process also applies to poultry slaughtering.
Asked about the risk of infected Chinese poultry making its way to Vietnam, the director called for consumers in the localities that share the border with China to practice caution.
But he said consumers in HCM City and other parts of southern Vietnam are unlikely to buy avian flu-infected chickens as it is costly to transport them from the north to the south.
He advised consumers to buy chickens from reliable suppliers to get quality products.
Pham Thi Ngoc Ha, director of HCM City-based San Ha Co Ltd which specializes in poultry products, said sales of her company had remained stable at 100 tons a day since the company started selling quarantined chickens and ducks.
Truong Chi Thien, director of Vinh Thanh Dat Food Joint Stock Company, said though there are no requirements for poultry egg quarantine but since August 1 last year, the eggs produced by the company have been carefully checked.
