MANILA, Philippines – Government veterinarians at the Bureau of Animal Industry are studying how the Ebola-Reston virus, detected among monkeys in Laguna in 1988 to 1992, was transmitted to swine, BAI Director Dave Catbagan said.

This was the first time that the virus was found in six of 28 samples of pig tissues brought to a laboratory in the US for testing, Catbagan said.

The BAI wanted the samples tested to determine what virus strain was affecting some hog cholera-stricken pigs in a farm in Pandi, Bulacan and another farm in Manaoag, Pangasinan. A backyard piggery in Talavera, Nueva Ecija, was also reported to have been affected.

“It was for genome sequencing. But then we detected ebola,” he said.

No deaths

Catbagan clarified that the virus did not cause any death among the affected swine. The virus did not manifest in any form of symptoms, he added.

The laboratory results were known on Oct. 30.

Asked why BAI made a late announcement, he said the agency needed to gather more information by going to the fields, doing surveillance and meeting with swine-raising groups.

“What is important is that we were able to establish the presence of the virus,” he said. “It did not spread among humans or caused sickness on people. There was no disease outbreak among pigs either.”

These findings, he said, were reached after veterinarians took blood samples of farm workers and employees in slaughterhouses.

“They tested negative of the Ebola-Reston virus,” he said. “There is no pig-to-human transmission.”

Safe to eat

He said it is still safe to eat pork meat.

In Bulacan, hog raisers and meat vendors assured the public that pork meat products are safe and generally free of Ebola-Reston virus.

Lito Hizon, president of Livestock Raisers Association of Pandi, said there was no reason for consumers to be alarmed on reports that the virus had affected pigs in a farm in Pandi.

He said the Department of Agriculture (DA) quarantined the Pandi farm on Wednesday after Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap announced the results of tests conducted by the US government and the World Health Organization.

In Nueva Ecija, officials in Talavera town were shocked to learn that a backyard piggery there was reported to have been affected by the Ebola-Reston virus.

“Not a single backyard piggery project here has been identified to have been affected by the virus,” Talavera Mayor Nerito Santos said. “The meat samples we sent for examination were from pigs intercepted from traders who just happened to pass by in our town.”

Santos said 10 pigs, two of them already dead and the rest sickly, were intercepted by a team from the municipal veterinarian’s office in Barangay Bantug in Talavera. The pigs, which were to be transported to Bulacan, were ordered burned after their meat samples were taken.

Sales good

Santos said they feared then the pigs were stricken with hog cholera that raged in Nueva Ecija the previous months.

Municipal secretary Danilo Salazar said sales of pork in Talavera continued to rise, despite reports that some pig farms in Bulacan and Pangasinan had been affected by the virus.

“The average number of pigs being slaughtered everyday is from 35 to 40 heads,” Salazar said.

In Pangasinan, the provincial veterinarian, Benedicto Perez, advised piggery farm owners in the province to implement biosecurity measures to prevent the Ebola-Reston virus from entering their farms. Reports from Tonette Orejas, Carmela Reyes and Anselmo Roque, Inquirer Central Luzon, and Yolanda Sotelo, Inquirer Northern Luzon