Some countries have restricted imports of poultry meat from Lithuania due to bird flu, LRT radio reported on Tuesday, citing the State Food and Veterinary Service (VMVT). 

According to the deputy director of the service, Paulus Bušauskas, after bird flu was detected in the Šilutė region, over a quarter of a million birds were destroyed. 

„We have received reports from Japan, Kyrgyzstan about export restrictions specifically from Klaipėda district. The French Polynesian region has also imposed restrictions on the Klaipėda region. Taiwan, because they don't recognise the principle of regionalisation, they have revoked Lithuania's free country status because of bird flu, which means that nothing can be exported from the whole country," Mr Busauskas told LRT radio on Tuesday.

As previously reported by BNS, at the end of January, the VMVT announced that an outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza had been confirmed at the Vilkyčiai poultry farm, with speculations that the influenza could have originated in Poland, but other versions have not been ruled out.

The authorities of Šilutė district had declared a local state of emergency for two weeks due to an outbreak of bird flu at the end of the dry season.

Vilkyčiai poultry farm belongs to the „Groward Group“, one of the largest food producers in Lithuania „owned by the owners of the Vičiūnai Group“ – indirectly controlled by the Kaunas Mayor Visvaldas Matijošaitis – and Liudas Skieras–.