Animal health risks associated with ostrich products

Five diseases recorded in ostriches are regarded as posing a potential animal health threat to meat-importing countries. Newcastle disease causes an atypically low mortality in ostriches: infected birds display typical nervous symptoms but no pathognomonic lesions which could be detected during post-mortem inspection. The vaccination of feedlot birds and a thorough ante-mortem examination are regarded as necessary precautions to ensure virus carriers are not among those animals destined for slaughter and subsequent export. Avian influenza produces clinical depression and lesions can be detected at post-mortem examination. Borna disease appears to affect mainly younger birds, and the virus is probably not present in the meat of affected birds. Finally, there is little evidence to suggest that ostriches could play a role in the epidemiology of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies. Cases of anthrax are extremely rare. The importation of deboned ostrich meat reduces the risk of infected scraps being fed to susceptible animals.