Prior to August 2017, some experts said the risk of an avian-influenza outbreak in the Philippines is minimal due to a number of factors. Unlike Thailand that is landlocked, the Philippines is an archipelago, so a pandemic is unlikely. The tropical climate of the country is also a plus factor because AI, or bird flu, usually thrives in countries that experience winter, such as those in North America and Europe. One government official even said that the good personal hygiene habits of Filipino farm workers (e.g., taking a bath every day) would ensure that the virus will not easily spread to other farms.
But these attributes failed to keep the virus at bay last year. The Philippines lost its reputation as one of the few countries in Asia that were left untouched by the bird flu on August 11, 2017. The Department of Agriculture (DA) announced that for the first time in history, bird flu had struck a poultry farm in San Luis, Pampanga. In a few months, the virus would jump to other poultry farms not only in Pampanga but also in Nueva Ecija.
While the government was prepared for this as early as 2004 when it came out with a bird flu manual outlining its strategies for fighting AI, the blueprint was put to the test in 2017. For one, the government had to resort to “manual” culling of birds because the Clean Air Act does not allow waste incineration. The government could not just bury the infected chicken alive because there was no available land where the government could do composting. There was also the possibility that the virus could spread if the fowls were buried because San Luis is a wetland area.
The bird flu outbreak in Central Luzon not only affected poultry growers but also exporters and retailers of dressed chicken. After the government confirmed that chicken and quail farms were struck by the virus, the country’s trading partners, such as Japan and the United Arab Emirates, banned local poultry products. Also, consumers stopped buying dressed chicken and shifted to other sources of protein, causing poultry growers and retailers to lose money.
The steps taken by the government prevented the outbreak from spreading to other regions in Central Luzon. But the industry and the government suffered a setback last November when the virus resurfaced in a farm in Nueva Ecija. This happened at a time when the Philippines started its countdown to becoming bird flu-free. If not for the fresh outbreak in Nueva Ecija, the Philippines would have regained its bird flu-free status as early as December.
With the publication of the country’s “self-declaration” report on the web site of the Office Internationale des Epizooties, the Philippines can now claim that it is finally free of bird flu. Regaining its bird flu-free status, which the country enjoyed for many years, allowed local producers to resume exporting chicken to traditional markets. Being bird flu-free also increased the confidence of consumers in the safety of local poultry.
Unfortunately, the government remains clueless on how the virus was able to penetrate local poultry farms. There is speculation that the virus may have been brought by migratory birds that frequent the Candaba swamp. There is also the probability that it came from poultry products or live birds imported from AI-infected countries. The government has undertaken a study on the first bird flu outbreak. It is hoped that it includes efforts to find out how the virus found its way into ground zero in San Luis, Pampanga.
Complacency will be the biggest enemy of the government in its bid to maintain the bird flu-free status of the Philippines. There must be no let up in its efforts to encourage poultry growers to immediately report unusual mortality rates in their farms. The government confirmed the outbreak in August 2017 but there were reports that as early as April of that year, poultry growers have already noted abnormal mortality rates among chicken in their farms. Unfortunately, this was not immediately reported, resulting in the culling of more fowl and mounting losses among poultry growers.