BY GLENDA TAYONA and IME SORNITO
ILOILO City – Western Visayas’ P30-billion poultry industry is now at risk. The region logged its first case of avian influenza or bird flu in Barangay Cagay, Roxas City, Capiz.
Laboratory Result No. 4849-01 released by the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) – Veterinary Laboratory Division on Dec. 2 showed the poultry serum and oropharyngeal swab samples from Barangay Cagay to be positive for influenza virus type A (IVA) subtype H5NI.
Bird flu is a highly contagious viral disease caused by any influenza virus affecting several species of food-producing birds (chickens, turkeys, quails, guinea fowl, etc.), as well as pet birds and wild birds.
There are lots of strains of bird flu virus. The same strain, the H5N1, has been first detected in duck and quail farms in Bulacan and Pampanga provinces, respectively, in January this year.
The city and province of Iloilo are guarding their border against the possible entry of the poultry disease.
Provincial administrator/OIC governor, Atty. Dennis Ventilacion, in behalf of Iloilo governor Arthur Defensor Jr. , issued Executive Order (EO) No. 572-2022 implementing a temporary ban on the entry to the province of domestic and captured wild (ornamental) birds, poultry products and by-products from province of Capiz from Dec. 3 to 13, 2022.
Early this year, Defensor issued E0 244-B which imposed a temporary ban on the entry to the province of all live domestic and wild birds and their products from mainland Luzon (Regions I, Z 3, 4A, 5 and Cordillera Administrative Region) and Mindanao and areas affected by highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus, as declared by the Department of Agriculture (DA) except day old chicks (day old broilers, pullets and breeders), hatching eggs, dressed chicken, processed and cooked poultry meat products, ready to lay (RTL) pullets, eggs (table, salted and quail eggs, embryonated eggs/balut) and poultry manure/dung.
In Iloilo City, Mayor Jerry P. Treñas issued EO No. 043-2022 extending the effectivity of EO No. 06-2022 prohibiting the entry into the city of all live poultry and/or non-poultry and poultry products and by-products during the continuing avian influenza outbreak from Luzon and Mindanao.
Treñas said the city will also ban the entry of the same products from Capiz.
“There is a need to protect the poultry industry of Iloilo City and the general public from the effects of avian influenza,” read part of Treñas’ EO, which is effective immediately until revoked or lifted./PN
