February 25, 2009

The Philippine Department of Agriculture (DA) has slapped a temporary import ban of cattle and other animals susceptible to the foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) from China as well as entry of birds and poultry, including their products, from Belgium and the Canadian province of British Columbia due to bird flu.

 

Agriculture Undersecretary Jesus Emmanuel Paras said the DA barred the entry of cattle and other animals susceptible to FMD after the Office International des Epizooties (OIE) or World Animal Health Organization confirmed outbreaks of the disease in the Chinese provinces of Hubei and Xinjiang.

 

The ban also includes immediate suspension of the processing, evaluation of the application and issuance of Veterinary Quarantine Clearance (VQC) to buy these animals from China.

 

DA veterinary quarantine officers and inspectors were also ordered to stop and confiscate all such commodities and by-products into the country originating from China.

 

Paras said the DA also banned the entry of birds, poultry and their products from British Columbia and Belgium due to bird flu outbreaks in these countries.

 

According to the OIE, a bird flu outbreak in a turkey farm in Abbotsford, British Columbia and two such occurrences in a geese breeding farm in Buggenhout, East Flanders, and a farm for ornamental birds and poultry in Bocholt, Limburg, which are both in Belgium.

 

Paras said the ban is to protect the country from bird flu which ever since been from the deadly disease which struck in Asia six years ago.

 

He also ordered the immediate suspension of the processing, evaluation of the application and issuance of VQCs to all imports covering these products from the banned areas.

 

As of January 21 this year, a total of 51 countries with reported outbreaks of AI in their respective domestic poultry sectors were temporarily banned from shipping their poultry and poultry products into the country.

 

The World Health Organization (WHO) has reported that as of mid-February this year, there were 408 laboratory-confirmed cases of the bird flu and 254 fatalities from the disease since the H5N1 strain of the virus broke out in Southeast Asia in 2003 and then spread across the rest of the continent, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

 

The DA is now setting up Community-Based Early Warning Systems (CBEWS) in selected barangays (small communities) identified as "high risk of contracting the Avian Influenza (AI) virus" as part of its continuing measures to keep the Philippines free of this animal disease.

 

Under its Avian Influenza Protection Program (AIPP), the DA is also implementing an Applied Veterinary Epidemiology Training (AVET) Program to strengthen the capacity of the field veterinary services, especially at the local level, in designing and managing disease surveillance, conducting outbreak investigation and effective outbreak containment measures.

 

Aside from these measures, around 20 critical areas are under surveillance especially during the bird migration season of October to February.

   

So far, the DA said a total of 46,214 samples from birds have been tested since 2005 and were all found to be negative for the Highly Pathogenic AI (HPAI) agent.

 

The government now has four avian flu testing facilities located in Zamboanga City, Cagayan de Oro, Cebu City and San Fernando in Pampanga.

 

The DA said laboratories in Cagayan de Oro, Zamboanga and Cebu complement the ongoing work being done at the Regional Avian Influenza Diagnostic Laboratory (RAIDL), in San Fernando, Pampanga, which is the country's first diagnostic facility meant to promptly detect the AI virus.