The United States, Canada and Mexico have entered into an agreement to harmonize procedures for responding to future detections of highly pathogenic avian influenza.  USA Poultry and Egg Export Council President Jim Sumner says they’ve been working on this plan for 12 years and finally came to an agreement this week.

He says their next step is to send joint recommendations to OIE for handling high path avian influenza and other related concerns.

Sumner says this agreement will help improve working relations between the three NAFTA countries as well as with other nations as they deal with highly pathogenic avian influenza.

Sumner says their main hope is that this deal will minimize trade disruptions that result from bird flu detections.