March 26, 2009

The Philippine Department of Agriculture said Wednesday (March 25) it has issued a temporary ban on imports of poultry and poultry products coming from Japan and the Czech Republic due to reported outbreaks of avian flu in the two countries.

The ban follows separate reports from the Office International des Epizooties confirming outbreaks of low-pathogenic avian influenza in Toyohashi City in Japan and in a farm in Hodgkin Jihomoravsky in the Czech Republic, the department said in a statement.

The separate bans serve as precautionary measures, the department said.

In a related development, the department said it has lifted a ban on poultry and poultry products coming from Idaho in the United States, a major supplier of poultry products imported into the Philippines.

This follows an evaluation by the Bureau of Animal Industry, which determined that the risk of contamination from importing poultry and poultry products from Idaho is "negligible."

The Philippines is one of the few countries in Asia to have escaped the outbreak of the highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza virus that has claimed the lives of around 256 people across the region since 2003.