Armenia bans import of certain products from Italy due to bird flu

Armenia's State Service for Food Safety of the Ministry of Agriculture temporarily banned the import of certain products from Italy, ARKA reported citing the agency's official website. The relevant decree was signed by the head of inspection Abram Bakhchagulyan. The banned products include live poultry, all kinds of poultry products, commodity and incubation eggs, meat and bone meal, forages, additives, plastics and cardboard boxes. The decision was adopted within the fight against the bird flu in order to prevent the penetration of the disease in the territory of Armenia. The order is valid until the abolition of quarantine. In spring of 2013, due the outbreak of infection caused by a previously unknown avian influenza H7N9 in China, State Service for Food Safety temporarily banned the import of certain products from China to Armenia. In May the Chinese experts observed that the virus can be transmitted from person to person, which forced medics to pay a particularly great attention to it. The second outbreak of bird flu was recorded on August 21 in Northern Italian region of Emilia Romagna by the local sanitary inspection. Around 128,000 chicken heads infected with the avian influenza H7 with high virulence were hammered in the large poultry farm, located in the town of Ostellato (Ferrara province) at the end of last week This time the outbreak of a dangerous disease was localized in the poultry farm close to Bologna, where another 500,000 poultry heads will be hammered soon.