Trade barriers

I have always found puzzling the reactions that some countries have to incidents of animal disease in another country. Currently, for example, Japan has bans over the states of North Carolina, Missouri and Nebraska. The reason? isolated reports of low pathogenicity avian influenza, in some cases, only positive by serology but not by other tests that prove the inequivocal presence of virus which would be worrisome from the epidemiological stand point (being the virus still present in a flock of birds, it means that the virus can potentilally be spread to other susceptible animals) Beyond that, Japan has been hit recently by two episodes of highly pathogenic AI. Their poultry indsutry needs, or will need in the near future, to replace the stock being lost because of those incidents. How is all this pondered? by placing bans on importation of poultry originating in the states above mentioned. And particularly baby chicks of breeding stock that could help recover the loses caused by their local breaks of AI. There is evidence that points to the safety of hatching eggs and day-old chicks when it comes to carrying disease-causing agents such as AI. First, because this virus is not trasmitted vertically. Second, because the embryos infected by this virus dye before hatch. And of course, an infected flock, when already in production shows signs of disease. All this poitns to the fact that, an infection of AI is really hard to miss and even lesss likely to be spread through baby chicks and hatching eggs because. Similar situations are obvserved in other countries with even worse off situation, not only in terms of national flock health (endemic HPAI) but also in terms of general country economy, like developing countries such as Indonesia and Egypt that have battled HPAI for many years without much success and yet, immediately jumnp on the wagon of bans and restrictions when an isolated case of LPAI is reported elsewhere.So why restricting the importation of this much needed product when, on top of the above discussed, the situation in the importing country is worse than in the exporting country? The most likely reason is market protection; however, when it comes to breeding stock, it is more the damage tot heir own industry than protecting it (from whatever the rulemakers intend).