import restrictions on chicken meat imports costa rica reported that in march 2002 honduras had applied import restrictions on poultry meat from costa rica admitting imports of poultry meat only from countries that were free from avian influenza avian infectious laryngotracheitis newcastle disease and avian salmonellosis. costa rica recognized honduras efforts to improve its sanitary situation but questioned whether the measure was scientifically justified and whether honduras had carried out a relevant risk analysis. in this regard it would be to the benefit of all if honduras shared its scientific evidence with other members of the organization. honduras was trying to reverse the burden by insisting that costa rica demonstrate its disease free status regarding these four avian diseases. costa ricas avian health status was in line with the parameters recognized by the oie and its poultry meat exports did not constitute a risk for the avian health status of honduras. costa rica requested honduras to respond to the questions contained in g sps gen 347 rev.1 and requested that honduras lift the measure. argentina chile and thailand supported the concerns expressed by costa rica. chile requested information from the oie on this issue in particular concerning standards for the transmission of different avian diseases through fresh poultry meat. chile also requested a copy of the risk assessment carried out by honduras. honduras explained the background to his countrys decision to impose restrictions on chicken meat imports from costa rica. the agriculture and livestock secretariat had developed a national programme for the prevention control and eradication of avian diseases including avian influenza avian infectious laryngotracheitis newcastle disease and avian salmonellosis. this programme had been notified to all wto members g sps n hnd 3 . in october 2001 honduras had notified that it had achieved free status for the four avian diseases mentioned above. honduras had requested that costa rica as well as other countries provide the necessary documentation that guaranteed equivalence between the exporting countrys avian health status as well as access for technical experts to carry out the relevant inspections. his authorities had not been able to determine that the poultry health programmes of costa rica were equivalent because they had been unable to carry out the relevant inspections and obtain the necessary technical information requested from costa rica. the scientific evidence requested by costa rica was contained in the oie bulletin n6 pages 810 to 815 and honduras welcomed the updating of standards by the oie. the representative of the oie stated that oie standards existed for avian infectious laryngotracheitis avian salmonellosis and newcastle disease and for the highly pathogenic form only of avian influenza. the oie standards for avian infectious laryngotracheitis and avian salmonellosis contained recommendations only for live birds for day-old chicks and for hatching eggs but no recommendations for poultry meat. in other words at present there were no official oie standards for poultry meat for these two diseases however these chapters had not been reviewed for some time. the lack of a standard concerning poultry meat could mean either that there were no risks associated with trade in poultry meat for these diseases or that the oie had not come out with a recommendation on poultry meat which meant that trading partners would be expected to negotiate between themselves using risk analysis in order to reach science based conclusions. in the absence of an official oie standard the oie had replied to a request from the director of animal health in costa rica that there was no scientific evidence indicating that avian infectious laryngotracheitis or avian salmonellosis could be transmitted through poultry meat. this was not an official oie standard but a scientific opinion from the oie. if there was sufficien