STONE MOUNTAIN, Ga. -- In an advertisement appearing in Romanian newspapers, the USA Poultry & Egg Export Council is letting consumers in that country know it's safe to eat poultry -- both imported and domestic -- as long as it's cooked properly.
"Romania had an outbreak of [highly] pathogenic avian influenza [HPAI] and a lot of media attention has been paid to that," said Toby Moore, spokesman for the poultry trade group. "Importers in Romania are saying that the consumers are reluctant to buy poultry because of the bird flu scare. A lot of U.S. poultry goes to Romania so we thought it best to get out there and say it's safe to eat [properly cooked] poultry."
To date, the trade organization does not have any hard numbers on how poultry sales in Romania have been impacted, Moore said.
Since December 2003, a growing number of Asian countries have reported outbreaks of HPAI in chickens and ducks. It has spread to poultry in Turkey, Romania, Croatia and Greece. Humans who've been in direct contact with infected birds have also been affected, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The spread of the highly pathogenic H5N1 form of HPAI in 2004 and 2005 is historically unprecedented, the USDA reported.
The poultry council's message was published for the first time last week in a major Romanian newspaper and is expected to run three times. It doesn't include information about eggs since the United States doesn't export eggs to Romania.
"We didn't want to get too technical with [the message]," Moore said. "We just wanted to say, 'It's safe to eat poultry as long as it's properly cooked, whether it's from the U.S. or Romania.' U.S. poultry has never had the specific bird flu H5N1, so it's safe to eat."
Most bird flu strains are classified as low pathogenicity avian influenza and cause few clinical signs in infected birds. However, the highly pathogenic strains cause a severe and extremely contagious illness and death among infected birds, and can also be infectious to people, the USDA said.
LPAI is not transferable to humans by eating poultry, but HPAI is. Still, it's safe to eat poultry that's been cooked properly, even if it is infected with HPAI, according to Moore. The USDA recommends consumers practice safe food handling and preparation to protect against HPAI and other foodborne illnesses, including salmonella and E. coli.
Although HPAI isn't currently known to exist in the United States, there have been three outbreaks of the disease in poultry in this country, in 1924, 1983 and 2004, according to the USDA. In February 2004, the USDA confirmed that an H5N2 strain of bird flu was consistent with HPAI. There was no evidence of human health implications and it was limited to one small flock.
It's unlikely that frozen poultry exported from the United States would be infected with HPAI, the USDA said. If it were detected in the United States, the chance of infected poultry entering the food chain would be extremely low, according to the USDA. The risk of the virus entering this country is also minimal, officials said.
The USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service's safeguards include prohibiting the importation of live birds and hatching eggs from countries that have experienced H5N1 outbreaks. APHIS also requires that imports of poultry products from East and Southeast Asia be processed or cooked in accordance with a USDA permit prior to importation, and that all imported birds be quarantined at a USDA bird-quarantine facility and be tested for bird flu before entering the country.
The poultry council's advertisement does not provide tips or instructions for handling and cooking poultry. Also, Moore was not sure whether Romanian consumers are made aware of the country of origin for the poultry they purchase.
The poultry council has no immediate plans to publish the message in other countries, though the group hasn't ruled out doing so. "It's expensive and we don't really have a budget for it," Moore said.
Some countries that the U.S. exports poultry to require that the product undergo flock testing, he explained.
"In order to get an export certificate issued by the USDA to ship poultry to certain countries like Mexico and Russia, they require that you have a flock-testing procedure in place," Moore said. "A lot of [U.S. exporters] do surveillance testing and test for AI [avian influenza] even when it's not required."
