Philippines to cull fowl after bird flu outbreak
The Philippines will deploy hundreds of troops to hasten a cull of about 600,000 fowl, the farm minister said yesterday, as part of efforts to rein in the Southeast Asian nation’s first outbreak of bird flu.
There has been no case of human transmission after the flu was detected on a farm in the province of Pampanga, about 75 kilometers north of the capital Manila, but it has spread to about 36 other farms and nearly 40,000 birds have died.
“I have asked the Philippine army to provide us with additional warm bodies to help us in depopulating the farms,” Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Pinol told a news conference.
“Six hundred thousand is no mean job. Our personnel are facing a difficult task and we lack people.”
Pinol said the government had about 200 men in the area, but fewer than 20,000 birds had been culled since the outbreak was reported.
Brigadier-General Rodel Mairo Alarcon said at least 300 soldiers would be sent to the province today to assist in the cull of chicken, quail and ducks.
“The Philippines army and the Armed Forces of the Philippines is 100 percent in support of this effort,” Alarcon said.
Soldiers will be given protective gear and doses of a drug, Tamiflu, to guard them against possible infection. Two sick farm workers from the area have tested negative for the virus, the health ministry said.
Although the ministry has yet to identify the specific strain of the virus that hit the Philippines, officials say initial tests have ruled out the highly pathogenic H5N1.
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