Chile has detected bird flu at a turkey production plant run by poultry producer Agrosuper in the country’s central Valparaiso region, the Agriculture and Livestock Service (SAG) said on Wednesday.
SAG said it plans to cull the affected birds and quarantine the area to prevent the infectious disease from spreading.
No humans have been affected by the outbreak, it said.
Specialized laboratories are working to determine what strain of bird flu has infected the animals and once the results are available SAG will decide what further sanitary measures need to be taken.
In 2002, a highly infectious strain of bird flu was detected in Chile for the first time, curtailing poultry exports. That outbreak was brought under control.
Agrosuper said that the turkey plant, operated by its Sopraval unit, is located in rural Quilpue.
Different strains of bird flu, which can be spread to poultry by wild birds, have been detected across Asia and in Europe in recent weeks, leading to the slaughtering of millions of birds in South Korea and Japan and several human infections in China.