First Case of
Bird Flu Hits Philippines
Friday, July 8, 2005
Last Updated: 2005-07-08 9:55:49 -0400 (Reuters
Health) MANILA (Reuters) - The Philippines has suffered its first case
of bird flu after ducks were found to be infected in a town north of
Manila, prompting the country to immediately halt poultry exports to
Japan, government officials said on Friday.
Health Secretary Francisco Duque said samples have
been sent to Australia to determine whether the strain of avian
influenza was the same as the one that has killed dozens of people
elsewhere in Asia.
"There's no cause for alarm," Duque said in a
television interview. "We're still investigating the case."
The government expects to receive results of the
tests on the infected strain in a week.
A quarantine zone has been set up around the town of
Calumpit in Bulacan province to halt the trading and sale of poultry for
a week, in addition to the immediate slaughter of the affected flocks,
government officials said.
The H5N1 strain of the avian influenza virus has
killed 54 people of the 154 infected in Asia so far. More than 140
million chickens have been killed in the region to halt bird flu,
causing millions of dollars in losses.
Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap said halting exports
to Japan was a "voluntary" decision by the private sector.
The Philippines is not a big poultry exporter but it
has been shipping cargoes to Japan, which banned supplies from Thailand
where earlier bird flu outbreaks devastated the poultry industry.
The Department of Agriculture and the Department of
Health jointly assured the people that it was safe to eat chicken and
properly cooked duck meat.
"What we are carefully guarding against is the H5N1
strain, which is highly pathogenic and can be transmitted to other farm
animals and even people," Yap said. "We can't see the symptoms of H5N1.
The ducks are roaming around and are very healthy, and there are no
signs of flu."
United Nations officials told a conference in Kuala
Lumpur last week that bird flu was entrenched in Asia and it would take
up to a decade to rid the region of the virus and declare humans,
animals and meat safe from infection.
