Mindanaotoday.com | Bird flu has yet to infect MisOr: ProVet
By Franck Dick Rosete
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – The province of Misamis Oriental has remained free from Avian Influenza Virus (bird flu), the Provincial Veterinary Office (ProVet) announced Monday, May 23.
Dr. Benjamin Resma, ProVet chief, said that another set of hundreds of poultry blood samples from the different parts of the province have tested negative from bird flu.
“In the whole province, based on our monitoring, all of them are negative. Therefore, we don’t have bird flu cases in Misamis Oriental. Again, we will be very strict on the entry and our monitoring,” Resma said.
The ProVet recently collected 30 poultry blood samples each from the towns of Opol, Alubijid, Lugait, Magsaysay and the cities of El Salvador and Gingoog.
As part of their intensive monitoring, they also intensified their surveillance to the different quarantine checkpoints in the province to strictly monitor the entry of the poultry live products.
On May 13, the team from ProVet had confiscated a total of 16,500 pieces of fertilized duck eggs (“balut”) from Pampanga after they violated the executive order that bans the entry of poultry and its by-products from the areas that have been affected by the bird flu.
The ProVet immediately disposed the confiscated poultry products.
According to the data presented by Resma, as of April 29, there are already five provinces in Mindanao that have been affected by bird flu.
These include Sultan Kudarat, North Cotabato, South. Cotabato, Davao del Sur and Maguindanao.
ASF Update
Resma also said they will implement a ban of hog supplies from a certain area in Zamboanga Peninsula after the detection of a new African Swine Fever (ASF) case.
Resma said they are only waiting for the confirmation from the Department of Agriculture (DA) Regional Office 9 to identify the area that has been affected before they can implement the ban.
“We will ban the entry [of hogs] from a certain area of Zamboanga because they have a new ASF case, and most of our lechons here are from Zamboanga. Right now, we are waiting for confirmation,” he said.
Recently, the ProVet had conducted a meeting together with the different municipal and city agriculturists and veterinarians to tackle strategies to improve the ASF status of Misamis Oriental.
Resma confirmed that they already have problems when it comes to the stocks of the live hogs in the province.
“We conducted a meeting so that our color coding status will change because we are now having problems with the stocks of live hogs. We really want to change our status as the price of commodities are also increasing,” he said.
As part of the intensive monitoring measures, the DA Regional Office 10, on the other hand, had conducted a training for Barangay Biosecurity Officers from the towns of Tagoloan to Lugait.
The Barangay Biosecurity Officers will be in-charge in monitoring all of the hog raisers in their area in order to easily determine the concern regarding ASF.
Resma, meanwhile, said there was no new ASF case detected in the province.