DA rebuts messages that bird flu is here

For the second time since last week, the Department of Agriculture has its hands full repudiating another text message being circulated that the bird flu virus has hit Cebu City.

The latest foray of threatening text messages stated that two migratory birds died in a barangay Cogon-Pardo allegedly due to bird flu infection. But the DA officially repudiated these messages as false and baseless.

DA regional executive director Eduardo Lecciones reported to DA officer-in-charge Edmund Sana that the text message circulating is untrue, adding that results of blood samples on the birds and even the domesticated fowls in the area were negative of bird flu.

Subsequent tests conducted on the dead birds also showed no truth to the reports. City veterinarian Alice Utlang and DA-7's Pablo Balite said the birds died of contusions caused by an air gun or slingshot.

The DA further declared that the birds were brown shrikes, locally known as "tibala", and they were not migratory birds, as first reported. Last week, there were text messages saying that some birds in Escalante City, Negros Occidental, were found positive of the dreaded virus. - Jasmin R. Uy