Source : Manila Times, Philippines, 10 Jul '05
By : Dino Balabo
  

Gloria Carillo, head of the provincial agriculture office, told The Manila Times that officials culled 270 ducks and placed them inside plastic bags containing carbon dioxide to prevent virus from spreading or mutating.

Officials, Carillo added, have coordinated with the local police to prevent the sale of chicken and ducks within three kilometers from the duck farm where the avian-flu virus was detected.

Other officials stressed that the bird-flu virus strain found in Calumpit is not harmful to humans. “It’s the H5 strain. It’s not harmful to humans,” officials said.

The deadly strain of bird flu is the H5N1 virus.

Director Jose Molina of the Bureau of Animal Industry also met with local officials and police officers to discuss ways to prevent the virus from spreading.

There was an attempt to keep details of the meeting secret. Molina later said that there was no news blackout on the country’s first case of bird flu. “We just don’t want to scare local residents,” he said.

Molina, however, asked journalists not to go to Calumpit and he refused to disclose the exact location where the infection was detected.

Local officials, however, were more outspoken and told reporters that the infection was detected in a small backyard duck farm in Barangay Puno.

The officials told The Times that the infection was detected as early as July 1.

Mayor Abrosio Cruz of Guiguinto, president of the Bulacan chapter of the League of Municipalities of the Philippines, called on communities around the Candaba Swamp to avoid contact with migratory birds frequenting the area. These birds are thought to be the source of the bird-flu virus that infected the ducks in Calumpit.

Candaba Swamp is classified as a wildlife sanctuary, which is frequented by migratory birds from South East Asia.

Local officials had attempted last year to promote the sanctuary as a destination for bird watchers at the height of the bird-flu outbreak in Asia. The officials had played down the threat of the avian-flu virus, saying it was unlikely to be carried by migratory birds into the Philippines.

Today, their stand has changed.

“It is better that we just enjoy watching the birds and not touch them,” Cruz said. There is always a risk of getting infected with the bird-flu virus due to physical contact, he added.

Agriculture officials suspect that migratory birds or their droppings could have infected the ducks in Calumpit.

As this developed, the Bulacan-Egg Producers Association has stepped up its bio-security measures to protect the local poultry industry.

There are about 21,960 ducks and 4,960 chickens here threatened with the virus.

The detection of the bird-flu virus in Calumpit led to the temporary cancellation of the country’s chicken-export permit.

“This is just a temporary setback and we are glad it was detected immediately,” said Ruben Pascual of the Poultry Exporters Association.

Because of the detection of bird flu in the Philippines, migratory geese in a Hong Kong nature reserve are being checked for diseases.

Hong Kong university micro­biologists conduct “intensive surveillance” of wild birds at the Mai Po bird sanctuary, which is run by the conservation group WWF Hong Kong and located near the city’s border with mainland China.

The scientists take about 7,000 samples a year to test birds at Mai Po, WWF Hong Kong said in a statement seen Saturday. It didn’t specify what kind of samples were taken.

The statement came after the Philippines on Friday announced a bird flu case on a duck farm north of Manila. Officials said migratory birds had carried in the viral disease.

Hong Kong is wary of bird flu, which crossed over to humans here and killed six in 1997.

Since 2003, the disease has left at least 54 people dead in Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia. Most had been in contact with birds infected with the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus.

China’s recent bird flu outbreak killed more than 1,000 birds in Qinghai province.

During the winter, Mai Pao shelters up to 68,000 birds that return north to their breeding grounds in the spring. In spring and autumn, the sanctuary is used by an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 shorebirds.