NATIONAL NEWS - With thousands of jobs on the line, the South African Poultry Association (Sapa) is anxious that the industry “may never recover” from the highly pathogenic H5N8 strain of bird flu currently gripping South Africa.
This after a devastating outbreak that has already resulted in a whopping R800 million losses for affected farms – which have been forced to cull a countless number of egg producing chickens.
“Sapa is indeed worried that some of the producers may never recover from the devastation, resulting in shortages of mostly table eggs and also job losses,” the association’s acting CEO Dr Charlotte Nkuna said.
“In 2016, the total number of people employed by the industry and associated industries was about 132 000. Over 1 000 jobs have been affected directly by the outbreak. We expect the numbers to grow once the impact cascades to secondary industries.”
Since June 2017, following an outbreak in neighbouring Zimbabwe, there have been 67 reported outbreaks of avian influenza. This includes 20 in commercial chickens, two in commercial ducks, 12 in commercial ostriches, 18 in wild birds, nine in hobby birds and six in backyard flocks.
Bird flu is currently spread along Gauteng, Mpumalanga, North West, KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape, Western Cape and the Free State provinces.
