Depopulation of hogs in Bulacan off to slow start

MANILA, Philippines - The depopulation of 6,000 hogs infected with the Ebola Reston virus in a hog farm in Pandi, Bulacan, went off to a slow start but authorities still expect to finish the job Wednesday night. Bureau of Animal Industries (BAI) head Davinio Catbagan said Monday they will fine tune the process after they managed to dispose of “only" 442 hogs late Sunday. “Medyo may kaunting kabagalan pa. I hope ngayong umaga hanggang sa susunod na araw kung ma-improve natin ang proseso by Wednesday ng gabi matatapos lahat ito [I found it slow but hopefully in the next days we can improve so that we can finish the job Wednesday night]," he said in an interview on dzBB radio. He said he thought the process went slow Sunday, but said he expects the fine-tuning to speed up the process. Catbagan said workers wearing scrub suits to protect themselves from possible infection were slowed down mainly due to the heat. “Pilit namin maumpisahan kahapon ng 5 p.m. para makita ang dapat i-improve sa proseso. At nakikita natin mga 3 oras nakatapos tayo ng 442 kulang-kulang ng 500, tuloy-tuloy yan. Kasi ikakarga ang baboy sa trak at ida-drive sa area within the farm kung saan may hukay," he said. [We tried to start the process at 5 p.m. Sunday to see what we can do to improve the procedure. After three hours we disposed of 442 hogs. That includes transporting the hogs to an area in the farm where they will be disposed of.] In the meantime, he assured animal rights activists the rest of the hogs are being taken good care of, with the remainder still being given food until they will be disposed of. After the 6,000 hogs are disposed of, Catbagan said health and agriculture authorities plan to conduct wider surveillance in neighboring farms and backyards. He said the expanded surveillance will also cover Pangasinan in Ilocos; and other areas in the Central and Southern Luzon regions. Catbagan said the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has promised the Philippine government financial help for the tests. “We will not stop so long as we have antigen test kits. The FAO assured us it will talk to the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, which is the only agency in the world that has the test kits. Our expanded surveillance will depend on how many test kits we can get)," he said. He added the US government had provided the Regional Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) free assistance for the initial surveillance. - GMANews.TV