Poultry owners urged to voluntarily submit specimen for testing

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO – Vice-Governor Dennis “Delta” Pineda on Monday urged poultry owners in the province to voluntarily submit specimens of their fowls to the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) for immediate testing.

This is to expedite the clearing of towns and municipalities outside the seven-kilometer radius controlled area affected by avian influenza.

Vice-Governor Pineda said that the longer Pampanga is tagged with bird flu outbreak, the bigger the complications it may cause, especially on the economy of the province.

“Hindi natin kakayanin ang matagal na proseso. Kawawa ang mga negosyante dito sa Pampanga lalo na wala naman talagang bird flu sa kanila,” he said.

Since most of the poultry owners in the province are considered backyard raisers who cannot afford to hire veterinarians, the vice-governor asked the BAI to deploy their personnel first to facilitate the extraction of semen and testing.

He disclosed that the provincial government is ready to shoulder the cost of equipment that will be used in the testing process just to assure that non-afflicted farms will be cleared immediately. “Kokolektahin na agad ‘yung samples, yung laway, manure tsaka dugo, tapos submit na namin sa inyo [BAI] tapos pag cleared, take note agad para makalaya na ‘yung mga hindi naman talaga kasama,” Vice-Governor Pineda said.

BAI Representative Dr. Ronnie Domingo, for his part, explained that each poultry owner must submit at least 30 representative samples for them to be cleared from the virus.

He added that BAI facilities can cater 90 to 100 sample specimens or three farms per day and might still take at least one week to clear all poultry farms in the province.

According to the Provincial Veterinarian’s Office, there are around 97 poultry farms outside the seven kilometer controlled area in the province.

Nonetheless, Domingo said they will conduct necessary measures to clear the unaffected poultry farms to those which are still under quarantine.