Tests conducted by the Cornell University Research Lab in the United States have confirmed that the devastation of the local duck industry last year was caused by duck hepatitis virus.
Guyana Livestock and Development Authority (GLDA) Deputy Chief Executive Officer Dr. Dwight Walrond told Stabroek News that the test results were returned late last year.
The virus saw unexplained deaths at duck farms across the country. Farmers had told Stabroek News that they were instructed by the GLDA to halt production as they were recording daily losses. According to a report provided to the World Organisation for Animal Health, 13,362 ducks were killed and disposed of, while 4,000 cases of the virus were reported.
Walrond explained that illegal trade activities across the borders contributed to the importation of the disease and this led to the complete destruction of the duck industry. “We had to slaughter 100 percent. Do we want to return to that? The outbreak started in Region 6 and spread within days to all of Essequibo Coast and Islands,” he noted.
On this note, Walrond said there is a need for better policing of the country’s vast and porous borders to prevent smuggling activities. “I want to implore, let us do the right thing. The duck industry, we are in a good state, not widespread. Our epidemiologist and his team have been following up, conducting testing so we have no recurrence of the disease,” Walrond said.
GLDA had initially suspected that the illness was duck hepatitis virus, which is a highly fatal, contagious disease of young ducklings between one and 28 days old.
Due to the suspected virus, Trinidad and Tobago banned raw and cooked poultry meat from Guyana as a precautionary measure. This ban remains in place.
However, the Guyana Poultry Producers Association and the Ministry of Agriculture have said that the meat from poultry produced in Guyana is safe for consumption.
On May 18, 2019, the GLDA had issued a notice advising that its surveillance team had recorded an increased mortality rate among the ducklings being hatched at its hatchery. The agency said that it had also been told by some farmers that a “similar occurrence was taking place on a number of farms throughout the various regions.”
The high mortality rates were recorded primarily in the Muscovy breed of ducklings, with the ducklings most affected being from the farms that toll hatched at the GLDA hatchery. Consequently, the GLDA closed the hatchery and initiated a surveillance and monitoring exercise. “We at the GLDA are aware that the economic impact on the duck farming community is going to be huge and we are working assiduously to have this situation rectified at the earliest opportune time,” the GLDA had said.
