More than 80 countries have put restrictions on imports of U.S. poultry products out of fear of bird flu spreading from American farms to their shores.
During the bird flu outbreak of 2014-2015, roughly half as many countries barred U.S. poultry. But those bans applied to any American poultry. This time, more nuanced trade policies parse their import restrictions to poultry from specific counties or regions in the U.S. where a highly contagious form of bird flu has been detected.
“There is a large reduction in the size of restricted zones from past outbreaks,” Mike Stepien, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, wrote in an email to Harvest Public Media. “Previously, several countries restricted the entire United States, and many countries implemented state-wide restrictions.”
