Ebola pig slaughter starts

PANDI, Bulacan, Philippines – Health and agriculture officials arrived at a farm in this town yesterday and started slaughtering around 6,000 pigs to prevent the spread of the Ebola-Reston virus.

Security was tight with police checkpoints set up in Bulacan to prevent reporters from getting close to the farm where traces of the non-lethal virus had been detected.

Even houses near the farm were secured by police to keep outsiders away.

Eric Tayag, head of the National Epidemiology Center, told reporters that an electric stun gun would be used to kill the pigs after which the carcasses would be burned and then buried.

He said they expected to cull only about 500 pigs Sunday but hoped later to slaughter a thousand a day, to complete the process within a week.

Aircraft were prevented from flying over the farm, Tayag said as he turned down a request from a local television station to shoot the scene from the air.

According to the World Health Organization, the strain infecting the pigs is not dangerous to humans, unlike the four deadly Ebola subtypes found in Africa.

The government earlier imposed quarantine on two farms in Bulacan and Pangasinan after samples found some pigs were carrying the Ebola-Reston strain. It was later found that the spread of the virus was only continuing in the farm in Pandi, Bulacan province.

The strain was first found in laboratory monkeys exported from the Philippines to the US in 1989.

So far, six farm workers and butchers have been found with the antibodies to Ebola-Reston and scientists are still trying to determine if the six caught the virus from pigs.

If such a link is proved it would be the first time humans have contracted the disease from pigs.

Meanwhile, Japan is ready to assist the Philippines address the problem on Ebola-Reston virus that infected thousands of pigs.

Naoko Ueda, director of the Infectious Disease Control Division-Health Human Resources and Infectious Disease Control Group of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in a briefing for Asian journalists at the JICA Head Office that the Philippine government has to formally request Japan for assistance.

“We are willing to assist but there has to be a request from the Philippine government. We alone cannot decide,” Ueda said.

Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap approved the procedure for the slaughter and disposal of 6,000 pigs infected with the Ebola-Reston virus in Pandi, Bulacan.

Dr. Joy Gomez, Bulacan provincial health officer, said the approved procedure involves the use of a stun gun to put the animals to sleep.

Gomez said they have considered provisions of the Animal Welfare Act, Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act in adopting the procedure.

The animal carcasses will be burned and buried in a pit 15 feet deep, 30 feet wide and 30 feet long.

The pit was dug inside the hog farm in Pandi, which has been put under quarantine since the discovery of the Ebola-Reston virus in that town last December. – Pia Lee-Brago