#12,697
A week after the Philippines announced their very first bird flu outbreak, their Secretary of Agriculture Manny Piñol has announced a second outbreak - in neighboring Nueva Ecija province - to the media, and on his Facebook page.
This report from the Secretary's Facebook feed.
TWO MORE AVIAN FLU CASES CONFIRMED IN NUEVA ECIJA
By Manny Piñol
Two new cases of Avian Influenza have been confirmed by the Bureau of Animal Industry in Jaen and San Isidro towns of Nueva Ecija today.
The confirmation was made after.series of laboratory tests on specimens gathered from quails and layer chickens were conducted by thr Animal Diseases Detection Laboratory.
Unlike in the case of San Luis, Pampanga where a similar case was only reported three months after it as first suspected, the Nueva Ecija cases were immediately reported.
Quarantine teams were immediately established even before the laboratory tests confirmed the presence of the virus.
A 1 km. Contained radius and a 7 kilometer controlled radius were established just like in San Luis, Pampanga.
The farm in Jaen raised quails which were wiped out while the farm in Jaen is a layer poultry facility of about 20,000 heads.
Culling operations are on-going for the otherfowls in the 1-kilometer radius.
Nueva Ecija poultry population:
* layer chicken 401,894; (affected- 28k, 7%)
* broiler 3,805,135; (0%)
* Duck 502,005; (affected - 22k, 4%)
* native chicken 1,507,510; (affected - 57k, 4%)
* quail (200k)
(population & percentage of total, w/in 1km radius).
A similar report appears this morning in the Manila Times.
Bird flu spreads to Nueva Ecija but under control—agriculture chief
By The Manila Times on August 18, 2017(Continue . . . )
AGRICULTURE Secretary Manny Pinol has confirmed two cases of bird flu infection in Nueva Ecija.
In a live interview on GMA7 on Friday, Pinol said affected were the poultry farms of Jaen and San Isidro.
Pinol assured the public, however, that the spread of the bird flu strain, identified as H5, was under control.
The strain is the same type as the one found in San Luis, Pampanga where the first outbreak was reported.
A week after announcing that samples had been sent to labs in Australia for subtyping it still isn't clear exactly what type of HPAI H5 the Philippines authorities are dealing with. There were initial denials of it being H5N1, but nothing more precise has been announced.
While H5N8 and H5N6 are the two most obvious suspects, the Asian lineage of HPAI H5 has shown a remarkable ability to reassort with local LPAI viruses. Over the past three years we've seen H5N2, H5N3, H5N5, and H5N9 viruses emerge - at least temporarily - in areas where HPAI H5 has visited.Hopefully we'll get an exact subtype, and a more precise genetic characterization, soon.
