OIE officials to meet Piñol, industry stakeholders on avian flu outbreak
Officials of World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) flew here in the country for a closed-door meeting with key Philippine government officials, including Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol, and industry stakeholders about the avian flu outbreak.
And the word on the street is that some of these foreign officials are not happy about the Philippine government's late submission of samples of the infected birds to Australian Animal Health Laboratory.
When asked for confirmation about OIE and FAO officials now being in the country to investigate the bird flu outbreak, Piñol said "yes, we will have a PCAF (Philippine Council for Agriculture and Fisheries) meeting tomorrow (Tuesday)."
OIE is an intergovernmental organization responsible for improving and monitoring animal health worldwide, while FAO is a specialized agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to defeat hunger.
PCAF, on the other hand, is an attached agency of the Department of Agriculture (DA) that facilitates broadbased participatory processes in the agriculture and fisheries sector. It is tasked to conduct broad-based consultation with agriculture stakeholders.
The avian flu, which has brought these OIE and FAO officials here in the country, had so far spread to two towns in Nueva Ecija exactly a week after DA announced the outbreak in San Luis, Pampanga.
Piñol said he has not yet met with any of these foreign officials.
The meeting today (Tuesday) will include several agriculture groups and stakeholders, some of whom were the ones that expressed disgust on how the DA deal with the outbreak. This includes Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura (SINAG).
SINAG earlier said that DA that is now wreaking havoc on the local agriculture and poultry industry for over reacting and magnifying an issue that would have been an isolated case.
Apparently, the feeling is mutual between Piñol and SINAG.
"SINAG has always played the role of an inveterate heckler and faultfinder," Piñol said in a text message when asked about SINAG's estimate on the cost of the outbreak's damage to the poultry industry.
A source savvy on the issue said the meeting is "Piñol's backdoor channel to talk to the industry."
In 2004, a potential outbreak was also reported in the Philippines but confirmatory tests from Australia eventually revealed it’s negative.
Meanwhile, Agriculture Assistant Secretary for Livestock Enrico P. Garzon Jr. said the Australian Animal Health Laboratory, which is a reference laboratory certified by OIE, may already release the result of confirmatory tests that were conducted on the samples of the birds that were allegedly killed by the avian flu virus.
"The result will come out on Tuesday," Garzon said in a separate text exchange.
But Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) head for animal disease and control division Arlene Vytiaco said this might not be true as they haven't heard any word yet from the laboratory officials.
She confirmed, however, that BAI faced delays in sending the samples to Australia.
"We really faced delays because Australian Animal Health Laboratory is very strict. If there were changes, even the slightest ones, you have to start all over again with the reports," Vytiaco said in a phone interview on Monday.
As for the potential spread of the bird flu virus, she said there is no additional areas that could have possibly obtained it.
"So far, all our provincial veterinarians are on red alert," Vytiaco further said.
"I think we have contained. We will be certain about that after two more weeks," Piñol also said.
BAI Assistant Director Simeon S. Amurao Jr., for his part, said Japan, South Korea and Singapore have already imposed a temporary ban on the poultry products coming from the country.
In another phone interview, Amurao explained this is "just a natural reaction of countries" when an outbreak happens in another country. However, he pointed out that the ban could only be isolated by region or by province.