Ministry searching for fungus source

Last week, the PSU "trace back" focused on six farms that received chicks from the same batch as the farm in Valencia where 170 chicks died on January 14-15 of aspergillosis.

Test samples were also taken at the Nutrimix hatchery, Barrackpore on Thursday. The results are expected today. The samples required 72 hours before a determination could be made. "A wider range of tests" will be done this week at the hatchery to determine how the fungus reached the Valencia farm.

Newsday has learnt that four of the farms visited by PSU showed "nothing abnormal" while farmers at two others said there were no problems. Despite this assurance, PSU officers still went to check the farms.

In a release, last Friday, the Ministry said the investigations "should not be construed as an indication of other outbreaks of aspergillosis, but rather, are part of the normal procedure utilised by the PSU to identify possible sources of this and similar poultry diseases."

According to an information sheet from the Agriculture Ministry, aspergillosis is an increasingly common fungal infection of birds and occasionally other animals and man.

The fungus which causes aspergillosis can grow on a range of organic substances — in the bird’s environment — bedding, manure, feed, on and in eggs.

The bird is infected when it is exposed to a large number of aspergillus fungal elements through the respiratory tract.