Kenya and Rwanda have lifted ban on the importation of products from Uganda after a declaration that Uganda is free from the highly pathogenic bird flu.
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The declaration was made by Uganda’s Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries over the weekend.
The outbreak of bird flu was declared in Uganda on 15th January, 2017 affecting domestic and wild birds.
10,000 wild birds are estimated to have died while 50,000 domestic birds are estimated to have been lost to bird flu.
According to Uganda’s agriculture minister Christopher Kibanzanga, surveillance in all affected districts around the shores of Lake Victoria and Kalangala islands and laboratory samples collected from domestic poultry and wild birds have been confirmed negative since March 2017 to date.
He said the country has not detected any strains of bird flu since May this year and that World Organisation for Animal Health which is hosted in France had declared Uganda free of the disease in May.
The bird flu outbreak had negatively impacted on the country’s economy resulting for trade bans on the country’s exportation of poultry and poultry products to Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo as well as death of poultry.
However Kibanzanga told the media that “The government of Kenya has now agreed to partially lift the trade ban through compartments. Some firms and industries have been certified and licensed to export to Kenya after fulfilling the conditions and the total ban will be uplifted after other firms have also complied.