Quantum Foods announced that it lost 1.5 million egg production and breeder hens during the current outbreak of H7 Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza.  During April, the company lost close to 500,000 birds in an earlier outbreak on a complex in the Western Cape Province.  Quantum will post a loss in the current financial year.

Problems facing egg producers in South Africa extend beyond HPAI.  Power brown-outs and “load shedding” as a result of deficiencies in the national grid and inadequate power generation have impacted production and packaging. 

In an attempt to reduce dissemination of avian influenza, trade in culled hens has been banned.  Traditionally, the egg industry in the Republic of South Africa relies on sale of culled hens through a network of middlemen to offset the cost of rearing replacement pullets.  The regulation will deprive poor, rural communities of a source of protein, and deny producers of a source of revenue. An unintended and inevitable consequence will be unregulated clandestine distribution of hens further complicating control.

Given the situation in South Africa, deployment of vaccines will be the only effective method of suppressing infection.