An official report revealed that from last November to last February, 15 outbreaks were identified in Cotopaxi, Bolívar, Tunguragua, Pichincha and Azuay provinces.
Nearly a million 193,000 491 birds were affected by influenza in those areas primarily devoted to egg production, the document details.
According to the MAG, as part of the measures they will implement to contain the virus in birds, they will start vaccination from next Friday with the first four million doses that arrived in the country last week.
In a first phase, Agrocalidad will allocate the doses to the farms where the cases have been registered and, a week later, proceed to other poultry farms that have implemented biosecurity measures.
In addition, they believe that the implementation of the measure will help reduce the mortality rate of infested birds from 80 to 40 percent.
In January, the Ecuadorian authorities reported the first case of human transmission in a minor who was likely to have been infected through direct contact with backyard birds carrying the virus in Bolívar province.
According to the World Organization for Animal Health, avian flu is also common in Canada, the United States, Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Chile, among others.
mgt/nta