January 8, 2008 | 12:00am
Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap is re-imposing a temporary ban on all imports of domesticated and wild birds, along with poultry and its products, from the Republic of Korea.
The ban is being re-imposed following official confirmation by animal health authorities of the presence anew of the avian influenza (AI) or bird flu virus in Korea.
The ban is based on a Nov. 26, 2007 report submitted by Dr. Chang-Seob Kim, the director of Korea’s Animal Health Division, to the Office International des Epizooties (OIE) or Animal Health Organization, on the outbreak of low pathogenic AI of serotype H7N3 in a duck-raising farm in Yongdoo-dong, Kwangju-Jikhalsi.
Yap said the temporary ban and other emergency measures are necessary to protect human health and the P60 billion poultry industry in the Philippines which has remained free of bird flu ever since the H5N1 strain of this virus resurfaced in 2003.
The Philippines is one of only three Avian Influenza-free countries in Southeast Asia. The two others are Brunei and Singapore.
Yap said he has ordered DA quarantine officers and inspectors at all major airports and seaports to “stop and confiscate all shipments of live birds, poultry and poultry products into the country originating from Korea.”
The ban covers all domesticated and wild birds and their products, including day-old chicks, eggs and semen.
As of the first week of January 2008, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that 216 out of 348 people found in laboratory-confirmed cases to have been infected with the AI virus have died since the H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus resurfaced in Southeast Asia in 2003 and then spread across the rest of the continent, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
The deaths represent a 62 percent human mortality rate from the virus.
Yap has also ordered the immediate suspension of the issuance of veterinary quarantine clearances (VQCs) to all imports covering these products from Korea.
The DA first imposed a ban on all live bird and poultry imports from Korea in November 2006, and later on birds and their products from the United Kingdom and Japan after the presence of the bird flu virus was also detected in these countries.
The ban on imports from Japan was lifted in May 2007 following an evaluation by the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) that the risk of AI contamination from bird and poultry products originating from Korea was negligible.
WHO experts have expressed concern over the possibility that every additional human infection gives the virus a greater opportunity to mutate into a deadlier strain that would make it easier for AI to jump from fowls to humans and then from person to person, which could lead to a pandemic.
