Higher fines for bird flu-affected farms

The Romanian Government announced today the introduction of higher fines of up to 200 million ROL for poultry farms found in breach with biosecurity norms.

The governmental moves, announced by Govt spokeswoman Oana Marinescu after a new top-level reunion on the campaign to contain the ongoing bird flu outbreak across Romania, include an option to close “guilty” farms if repeated checks within a period of six months reveal the biosecurity deficiencies are still there.

Starting Tuesday, official checks will move on to meat storage and processing facilities to see whether they fall in line with the sanitary conditions for the processing of imported meat. The checks will overlap with controls at chicken farms across the country, as by Tuesday morning there were 114 bird flu hotbeds across Romania.