President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has directed the Department of Agriculture to strengthen the measures to protect human health and the country’s P60-billion poultry industry from the bird flu virus (AI).
The Department of Agriculture (DA) has recently slapped a temporary ban on all imports of domestic and wild birds, along with poultry and its products from Denmark, following the reports of (AI) or bird flu virus in that country.
Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap said the ban covers all “domestic and wild birds and their products, including day-old chicks, eggs and semen.”
He issued the ban after the Office of International des Epizooties (OIE) or the Animal Health Organization confirmed that low pathogenic AI has been detected in a poultry farm in Stenstrup, Svendborg Kommune, South in Denmark which affected geese, chickens, ducks and mallards.
Besides Denmark, the Philippines also currently bans imports of birds, poultry and its products from among others, Korea, Saudi Arabia, Poland and the western African country of Benin, to protect human health and the poultry industry in the Philippines.
The country has remained free of bird flu ever since the H5NI strain of this virus resurfaced in Asia in 2003. (PIA/Bohol)
