DA prepares support program for hog industry amid Ebola Reston case

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Agriculture (DA) on Friday said it is working on a support program to assist hog producers in farms where the Ebola Reston virus had been detected. Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap said incentives will also be provided to other growers to encourage them to participate in the concerted government program to stamp out the disease. The planned program will include the acquisition of additional laboratory kits needed to check the presence of the virus among swine and a support package to help livestock growers whose infected hogs will be culled or destroyed by quick-response government teams led by the DA’s Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) to prevent the spread of the Reston disease among animals. This developed as executives of international health institutions such as the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Office International des Epizooties (OIE) or World Animal Health Organization commended Secretaries Yap of the DA and Francisco Duque of the Department of Health (DOH) for their respective offices’ quick and appropriate action in containing the latest resurfacing of the Reston virus, which was earlier detected in two swine farms in certain parts of Luzon. Officials of the DA and DOH along with these international health institutions have pointed out Wednesday night that the Reston virus “does not pose a significant public health risk." Duque and Yap said this particular strain of the Ebola virus has been shown in the past to be “non-pathogenic," which means it is not harmful to humans. Authorities say the Reston virus is entirely different from the three other Ebola subtypes, which are all potentially fatal to humans. Unlike the Zaire, Ivory Coast and Sudan strains, the Reston strain has not been found to be fatal like the three other strains or to have caused illnesses to humans in contact with the infected animals. It was first discovered in the Philippines in 1989 among crab-eating macaques or monkeys then being exported by the Laguna-based Ferlite Farms to the Hazleton Laboratories in Reston,Virginia . The WHO and OIE consider the presence of the Reston virus in the Philippines as an “animal health issue and does not consider this a significant public health concern at this time." At the end of a nine-hour consultative meeting with livestock industry leaders at the DA last Wednesday, WHO country representative to the Philippines Dr. Soe Nyunt spoke on behalf of OIE and FAO in thanking Yap and Duque for their efforts in immediately addressing the Reston issue. The other experts present during the marathon meeting at the DA were Anthony Hazzard, WHO regional adviser for Food Safety; Carolyn Anne Coulombe, WHO technical officer (Risk Communications) Communicable Disease Surveillance and Response; and Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) director Remigio Olveda. AGAP party-list Rep. Nicanor Briones, who represented the subsector of small livestock stakeholders during the consultative meeting, also thanked Yap, Duque and WHO officials for educating the public about the Reston virus. “I would like to thank Secretary Duque and Secretary Yap and the representatives of WHO for making this thing clear to the public para hindi matakot ang ating mga consumer (so as not to spook our consumers)," Briones said. Earlier, Yap said that after finding out the presence of the Reston virus in the quarantined farms, 28 pig tissue samples taken from different locations in four different periods — May, June 4 and 26 and September — were sent to Center Disease Control (CDC) Plum Island in the US for testing. Only six samples were positive of the virus. Additional samples sent to the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) in Alabang, Muntinlupa, after these earlier tests were all found to be free of the Reston virus. WHO experts led by Dr. Nyunt and Dr. Julie Hall, team leader of its Emerging Infectious Diseases Division, have confirmed during the Dec. 10 consultative meeting at the DA that, based on historical evidence, the Reston virus has been found to be “non-pathogenic" and does not cause illnesses to humans in the past. Yap said the WHO has also declared that pork that is properly handled, washed and cooked is safe for human consumption because heat from adequate cooking kills viruses, including Reston . In fact, Hazzard told a press briefing after the consultative meeting that consumers should be worried of normal bacteria and not of the Reston virus when eating undercooked pork. “I think that if you undercooked pork, you have much more to worry about with the normal bacteria and normal parasites. Significantly more to worry about than Reston," he said. As a matter of precaution, Yap has called on the public to report sick animals to their City and Provincial Veterinarians and to refrain from buying meats from stalls without National Meat Inspection Service (NMIS) certifications. Yap said that in general, meat from sick or already dead animals “regardless of whatever viruses these animals had been infected with" should never be eaten by people. Yap and Duque, BAI Director Davinio Catbagan and Eric Tayag of the DOH National Epidemiology Center along with the international health experts met with officials of industry stakeholders like the National Federation of Hog Farmers, the Philippine College of Swine Practitioners or PCSP, Philippine Swine Producers Association, the Soro-soro Ibaba Development Cooperative, and the partylist organization Agriculture Sector Alliance of the Philippines (AGAP), to brief them on the official findings on the virus. Yap pointed out that although “no current reports of unusual illnesses nor deaths in pigs have been reported, the DA and the DOH have engaged stakeholders in the hog industry, local and international health and animal experts, to assist the government in the pro-active eradication of this virus" and in the interest of transparency in government. Besides tissue samples taken from pigs in the affected areas, Yap said tests were also done on the handlers in the farms where the virus originated; and even the butchers in the slaughterhouses where the animals were usually sent, as a precautionary measure. All the tests conducted on human samples yielded negative results for the presence of the Reston virus, he said. Yap has ordered the BAI, together with the local government units (LGUs), to continually test pigs in their localities. Hogs in farms that have tested positive for the virus will be quarantined and will undergo a comprehensive inventory. All pigs found to be infected will be destroyed and disposed of properly, Yap said. As a precautionary measure, Yap had also suspended all Philippine pork exports until further notice. - GMANews.TV