QUEZON City, Philippines (Eagle News) — The Department of Agriculture has confirmed that two cases of bird flu in two towns of Nueva Ecija and are set to do culling operations within the one kilometer radius of the farms where the cases had been found.
Agricullture Secretary Manny Piñol said that the confirmed cases were in the towns of Jaen and San Isidro. He said that in Jaen, the bird flu case was confirmed in one quail, while in San Isidro, the H5 bird flu strain was found in a layer, meaning a chicken who lays eggs.
“There will be automatic culling doon sa ground zero,” he said in a radio interview over DZBB.
Piñol said the department would set up quarantine stations in the area, and cull all poultry and fowl within the one-kilometer radius in the towns of Jaen and Nueva Ecija.
-Luzon poultry quarantine for another 3 weeks-
Because of this latest development, he said that the government would have to move the quarantine period in the whole of Luzon for another 21 days or three weeks, which is the period of incubation of the virus.
The department is still awaiting results of the initial samples from San Luis, Pampanga sent to Australia for testing so it could determine what kind of H5 bird flu strain hit the Philippines.
“We have to move our quarantine period in Luzon. Dapat next week lift na sana. With this latest development, magbibilang na naman tayo ng another 21 days which is the incubation period of the virus,” he said.
He said that the bird flu virus in Jaen and San Isidro probably came from San Luis in Pampanga, since the two provinces are just adjacent to each other.
“Malapit lang ang Nueva Ecija sa Pampanga,” Piñol said as he surmised that some of the infected birds or fowl from Pampanga might have been transported earlier to Nueva Ecija since the bird flu outbreak had been reported late by the Pampanga farm owners.
“Even before it was reported to us, may nakalabas na ng virus (mula sa) bayan ng San Luis sa Pampanga. May nadala from ground zero of San Luis, nadala sa other parts of Nueva Ecija,” he explained.
-Inspection for all Pampanga poultry farms-
He said that because of this all poultry farms in Pampanga will be inspected.
The department explained that three imaginary firewalls had been set up in the infected areas. First is the one kilometer radius from ground zero or the area of infection where all birds would be culled or killed; second is the 7-kilometer radius from ground zero; and the final firewall is the transport ban of poultry and live birds and other poultry products coming from Luzon to other areas of Visayas and Mindanao.
Pinol said this is to prevent the bird flu from further spreading to the other areas of the country.
