Flu-wary Russia curbs meat imports from Americas

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia, worried by a possible advent of the deadly swine flu strain, slapped on Sunday rigid curbs on meat imports from North and Latin America, the nation's chief veterinary official said.

Governments around the world are monitoring the spread of a new type of swine flu that has killed up to 81 people in Mexico and infected around a dozen in the United States.

"Imports of all types of meat that is not treated thermally are banned from Mexico, Texas, California and Kansas because it can be contaminated by infected people working at local slaughter houses or meat factories," Russia's chief veterinary official Nikolai Vlasov told Reuters.

He said raw pork imports were banned from U.S. states of Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Florida and the countries of Central America and the Caribbean.

"We hope this is a temporary measure," he said, stressing that the United States was the largest meat exporter to Russia from the American continent.

Vlasov said that banned meat purchases from southern U.S. states could be offset by bigger deliveries from northern states. He also said he expected his U.S. colleagues to take prompt and efficient steps to ensure proper quality controls.

"If we decide that the measures taken by the Americans are sufficient, we will lift our curbs," he said.

Meanwhile, meat batches from the Americas which were loaded after April 21 and bound for Russia will be impounded on Russia's borders, he said.

(Reporting by Dmitry Solovyov; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)