Hits and misses in bird flu outbreak

FEW TAKERS Chicken wings at the Kamuning Market in Quezon City —NIÑO JESUS ORBETA

SAN LUIS, PAMPANGA — The fence of Dr. Emigdio Bondoc Convention Center here displays four hazard maps and the town’s evacuation plan. None of these, however, reveals how a risk — the subject of hushed conversations — has evolved into a disaster.

On Aug. 11, San Luis — known in olden Pampanga as Cabagsac, which means plenty of fruit bats — became ground zero for the first bird flu outbreak in the country.

A review of events suggests the National Avian Influenza Task Force (NAITF) fell short of preventing the entry of the virus or tracking its onset. NAITF adopted international protocols as early as 2005 that were revised in a manual of procedures published in 2016, but the virus still penetrated the country.

There was enough warning when the more harmful H5N6 strain of avian flu surfaced in Taiwan in February.

San Luis Mayor Venancio Macapagal said he learned about the problem when the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) veterinarians frequented a big poultry farm in Barangay San Carlos here, two weeks before Agriculture Secretary Manny Piñol announced the bird flu outbreak.

By Piñol’s own account, egg-laying chickens (or layers) in that farm had displayed flu symptoms as far back as April. The owner, however, did not report it to authorities.

“Self-medication didn’t work so 15,000 layers died in July,” he said.

On Aug. 1, the BAI began to intervene, Pampanga provincial veterinarian Augusto Baluyut said.

Where this farm in San Carlos village got its supplies of layers and feeds was not known. Were these imported and did corruption at the country’s ports of entry ease the transmission of the avian flu virus?

Piñol has yet to say whether this farm would be criminally charged by the government. The same farm operates in a Nueva Ecija town.

Avian flu protection program

On Friday, Department of Agriculture (DA) officials quarantined a poultry farm in San Isidro town and backyard quail farms in Jaen town, all in Nueva Ecija, where avian flu infections had been detected.

The avian influenza protection program — as well as executive orders and department orders across the years — does not impose criminal liabilities on business establishments, which may be responsible for the entry or spread of the virus.

It was only on Aug. 18, or a week after the declaration of the outbreak, that the Office of Civil Defense in Central Luzon took charge of the government’s responses to bird flu.

Quarantine zone

The BAI established a 1-kilometer quarantine zone around Barangay San Carlos, put up a 7-km control area around the quarantine zone, and enforced a temporary ban on the shipment of poultry and its byproducts like eggs from Luzon to the Visayas and Mindanao. The agency later revised the ban to allow Luzon-to-Luzon trading.

Shut out of the information loop until Aug. 11, Pampanga Gov. Lilia Pineda provided the muscle and logistics to help fill the inadequacies of the BAI in stopping the spread of the virus beyond San Luis.

The provincial board and Vice Gov. Dennis Pineda declared a state of calamity to allow local governments to use their quick reaction funds to inspect and monitor poultry farms.

The culling of 131,500 chickens, ducks and quails in 13 farms in Barangay San Carlos and Sta. Rita went beyond its three-day schedule. The 100 or so soldiers sent by Malacañang on Aug. 16 hastened the process, with 151,000 birds destroyed as of Aug. 19.

Economic implications

Thirty-six teams of the provincial government had culled 121,000 birds within the 7-km radius as of Saturday.

The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council has yet to take the lead as the problem poses larger economic implications.

According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, chickens totaled 178.77 million as of Jan. 1, 2016. These were 1.30 percent higher than previous stocks.

Broilers (or chickens grown for meat) totaled 66 million, with 29 percent of that inventory located in Central Luzon.

Public scare

There are 32 million layers, with Calabarzon, Central Luzon and Northern Mindanao accounting for 73 percent of egg production.

Native and imported birds totaled 80.85 million, mostly from Central Luzon, Northern Mindanao and Western Visayas.

Government doctors have assured the public that the H5 strain of the avian influenza that struck Pampanga and Nueva Ecija does not transfer to humans.

But the public scare is real. Industry leaders and local officials have been campaigning regularly with the same message: “Chickens and eggs are safe to eat.”

Benjamin Bonifacio and his wife have been growing chickens for eggs for 30 years in Barangay San Carlos. All his 18,000 layers, which he bought at P270 each after mortgaging his land, had been culled although these were not sick.

The birds’ destruction has brought his losses up to P4.860 million, and the government is paying him only P80 per chicken, or a total of P1.44 million.

The government is not paying for the costs of the feeds, vitamins, operational expenses and the owners’ income from two years of unsold eggs.

Bonifacio, 72, said he was guilt-stricken because he had to starve his stock which would be destroyed eventually.

Nilo dela Cruz, 50, worked in factories in South Korea for nine years, investing P1 million of his savings on duck-raising in Barangay Sta. Lucia, also in San Luis.

That amount went down the drain when his 6,000 ducks were destroyed. He awaits compensation as he looks for other sources of income.

Zenaida Sosa of San Isidro Laug in Mexico town in Pampanga informed Piñol about her frustration. “I reported the deaths of my layers and sent chickens for extraction of samples on Aug. 7 [to the DA laboratory in San Fernando]. But until now [Aug. 15], I haven’t been told of the results,” she said.

In Barangay Bahay Pari in Candaba town, the 127 duck raisers there were unable to sell a million eggs daily for “balut” and “penoy,” losing P7 million a day.

At the Pampang public market in Angeles City, 130 vendors suffered a drastic drop in sales from 10,000 to 300 chickens.

Evangeline Lacson reduced her daily deliveries from 2,000 to 300 chickens but managed to sell only 10 dressed chickens.

“The poultry sector is going to die if the disease persists,” she said, adding that “only the government can turn around the situation for good.”