‘Early Reporting of Cases Is Crucial to Prevent an Outbreak’- DA Sec

Agriculture Secretary Manny Piñol stressed that early reporting of cases is crucial in order to prevent any outbreak, like avian influenza (AI), which recently hit Pampanga and Nueva Ecija.

In his status update on AI, Piñol said that based on investigation, the problem started as early as April 2017 in a quail farm with about 70 ducks and where all of the 50,000 quails and 50 ducks died in just a matter of days.

However, it was just on August 3 when the Regional Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory received the first reports of the unusual number of deaths of quails and leghorn chickens in several farms in San Luis town.

Of the 86,800 layers, 21,100 died. All 15,000 quails died and 385 out of 9,180 ducks were reported dead.

“On August 10, I received the report but announced it a day later because I asked the biosecurity experts to place quarantine stations first to prevent smuggling of cocks used in cockfighting,” he explained.

However, the secretary assured that since then, the government has acted immediately to prevent the outbreak from further spreading to nearby towns.

Immediately after the announcement, Piñol said that the Avian Influenza Task Force was activated and poultry from the 1-km radius zone were depopulated.

“A 7-km controlled zone or observation area was also established and a Luzonwide ban on shipment of poultry products to other parts of the country was also ordered immediately upon the recommendation of the biosecurity experts,” he reported.

Aside from depopulating affected poultry, the Department of Agriculture (DA) has also conducted consultations with local officials and affected stakeholders and established close coordination with them in the culling operations.

“People due to lack of information shied away from chicken and eggs resulting in the drastic low demand for chicken and eggs and a corresponding drop in the farm gate prices from Php90 to Php15 per kilo. Millions of eggs were spoiled and many people lost jobs,” he reported.

Because of this, the government gears towards continuous information dissemination to educate the public that poultry products from the affected areas are now safe for consumption.

However, despite the losses in the poultry industry, DA still considers the operations against the spread of avian influenza virus to be a success.

Piñol said that as part of their efforts, they have released a total of PhP52 million worth of aid to affected farmers.

The DA chief also announced that he asked additional PhP 100 million from the agency’s quick response fund to augment the livelihood of the affected farmers, and which was already approved by President Duterte.

Affected poultry raisers are not allowed to raise chickens for the next three months so in the meantime, DA pledged to help them with other agricultural activities.

“Today we witness a beautiful story. In adversity, a united people were successful and now we’re looking for a better future for the people of Pampanga and the province of Pampanga,” he concluded. (CLJD/MJLS-PIA 3)