Millions of chickens have been killed amid one of the worst bird flu outbreaks to hit the country.
BBC News, JohannesburgThe country has been grappling with one of its worst outbreaks of bird flu - millions of chickens have been killed over the past few weeks, supplies of poultry meat have been threatened and supermarkets across the nation have run out of eggs.
In an effort to stop the spread of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza - a deadly, extremely infectious type of bird flu - farmers have culled more than seven million egg-laying chickens. That amounts to 20-30% of the country's entire chicken stock, according to South African Poultry Association. Her store of choice is a spaza shop - the term for a small informal outlet - in her township of Diepsloot. Here, she can buy any quantity of eggs - when funds are low, she is able to get just two eggs for about 2.50 rand . However, this week, the store was totally out.
Astral said the flu has "spread at an alarming pace" and ravaged the poultry industry. The company also joined other producers in warning that South Africa could experience a shortage of chicken meat over the next few months."After baking scones for a client yesterday I was left with three eggs. I went shopping after to find more eggs but the price was too much for me," Zamapholoba Ngcobo, a bakery owner in the city of Pietermaritzburg said.
Paul Makube, an agriculture economist at First National Bank, told the BBC: "The outbreak has moved at a rapid pace, it is worse than what we saw during the outbreak in 2017. A further complication comes from the fact that we are dealing with a strain we have not previously dealt with."
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