MLBA15: June / July 2010
Philippine animal health sector: Evolving to adapt better
Plagued with various diseases including ebola reston virus and porcine reproductive and respiratory disease, the Philippine animal health sector evolves to solve recurring diseases and counter new ones.
In the interview, Mende notes that the country's animal health sector is still resilient but always vulnerable. Resilient in the sense that even with those production issues and amidst the many disease challenges, he believes the sector will still survive especially in the hog trade, with the good market prices.
He says that this season of the El Nino summer may have some consequential production challenges but summer is also giving good favours especially in terms of animal diseases. Most of the emerging viruses have been documented to not thrive well in hot environment like summer in the Philippines. They lose their pathogenecity and the potential to explode because by nature, they biologically do not survive well during summer. For that simple probability, summer heat becomes an advantage in suppressing diseases for hogs.
Mende shares that the Philippines remains vulnerable because the country still could not or have not done the entire nine yards of establishing its capability to identify what causes animal disease outbreaks on a definitive and working epidemiological level.
However, he points out that there are breakthrough products now like colostrum supplement. There is a technology that is able to harvest colostrums and give it directly to pigs. Also in hogs, poultry and cattle, there are a lot of organic supplements that are proven very effective particularly oregano - as anti-bacterial, immune-boosting supplement. It has shown in research and field studies to boost health and production parameters.
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