AT THREAT | Ver San Pedro, chair of Barangay Lugam in the City of Malolos, displays the eggs produced in his poultry farm in this November 2021 picture. Commercial and yard farms in Bulacan province are warned versus the possible bird influenza infection after the type A subtype H5N1 stress of the illness was spotted in Sta. Maria town. (Photo by CARMELA REYES-ESTROPE / Inquirer Central Luzon)
CITY OF MALOLOS, Bulacan, Philippines — Commercial and yard poultry farms in the province of Bulacan have actually begun taking procedures to avoid being struck by the extremely pathogenic bird influenza or bird influenza T after an industrial farm in Sta. Maria town lost a minimum of P6.2 million due to the illness, authorities said on Monday.
In an interview, Dr. Voltaire Basinang, Bulacan provincial veterinary officer, said lab outcomes carried out by the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) on Jan. 31 revealed that the samples drawn from the industrial farm checked favorable for the type A subtype H5N1 stress of bird influenza.
He said the tests were performed after a minimum of 80 chicken layers on the contaminated farm passed away in between Jan. 17 and Jan. 25, which alarmed the farm owner.
Basinang said more than 17,000 chicken layers on the farm were depopulated in between Feb. 1 and Feb. 2 to include the viral infection.
The losses sustained by the farm just covered the cost of chosen chicken layers and did not take into consideration the prospective profits losses, according to Basinang.
Migratory birds, such as egrets (Egretta garzetta), that go to Bulacan’s wetlands were thought to have actually triggered the bird influenza infection, Basinang revealed.
All industrial and even yard poultry farms were already recommended to “bird-proof” their locations and centers to avoid the entry of wild birds into their farms, he said.
“The high-technology bird-proof approach uses tunnel ventilation, wherein the chickens are kept in cages that are fully air-conditioned,” Basinang said.
Tunnel ventilation is developed to make the most of air motion that assists cool the birds and eliminate dust, specifically throughout heat, while avoiding contact with wild birds.
Surveillance zone
A kilometer-radius monitoring zone was imposed around the contaminated poultry to examine if other farms had actually likewise been impacted, Basinang said.
“We did not impose quarantine on the other poultry farms because chickens from the infected area were immediately culled,” he said.
According to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), Central Luzon, consisting of Bulacan, represented one-third of the nation’s chicken production in 2015.
In the very first half of 2022, the PSA said the overall volume of chicken production in Central Luzon reached 325,523 metric lots, showing a 19.5-percent boost from the exact same duration in 2021.
As of July 2022, there were 26 signed up industrial poultry farms in Bulacan, information from the BAI revealed.
Gov. Daniel Fernando on Monday contacted the province’s poultry market to strictly follow and follow precaution provided by the regional farming and veterinary workplaces in their towns and cities to avoid a comparable event.
On Jan. 8, 2021, the Department of Agriculture (DA) revealed that the World Organization for Animal Health had actually stated the nation devoid of bird influenza after managing the break outs of H5N6 in an industrial layer poultry farm in Pampanga province, and yard poultry farms in a town in Rizal province.
But the nation lost its bird flu-free status more than a year later on after break outs of the H5N1 stress were reported in Bulacan and neighboring Pampanga province.
More than 42,000 quails and ducks on farms in the provinces were chosen at that time.
Human infections
The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said H5N1 is lethal to animals and can contaminate human beings on uncommon events. The World Health Organization, on the other hand, reported there had actually been 26 H5N6 human infections reported in 2021.
The reoccurrence of the H5N6 stress, which likewise struck the nation in 2017 and 2020, was verified by the DA on July 10, 2020, after an industrial poultry owner in Pampanga reported the abrupt drop in egg production, cyanosis (dark bluish or purple pigmentation of the skin and mucous membranes in chickens) and death.
A month later on, a comparable case was spotted in a yard farm in Rizal province, which impacted about 500 free-range chickens and 300 Muscovy ducks.
In July in 2015, a minimum of 350,000 chicken layers were chosen in Pampanga’s Sto. Tomas town after the detection of the H5N1 stress in samples taken in Barangay San Bartolome from June 24 to June 27.
Outbreaks of bird influenza struck Pampanga on a big scale in 2017, with profits losses reaching P198 million, and on a very little scale in 2021.
Several quail farms at the towns of Dalayap and Mangga in Candaba town, and San Antonio in Mexico town, both in Pampanga, were likewise contaminated with the H5N1 stress in February in 2015. —CARMELA REYES-ESTROPE INQ
