Manila, Phillipines.-At a press conference, Agriculture Secretary William Dar said the highly pathogenic virus — which is transmissible to humans, but the mortality rate is low — was found in Barangay Ulanin-Pitak in Jaen town.
He said the bird flu virus, the same strain that hit some local poultry farms in 2017, was detected in Jaen municipality in Nueva Ecija province, where about 1,500 quails had died on one farm alone.
Animal quarantine checkpoints have also been set up to restrict the movement of all live domestic birds to and from the quarantine area, he said.
“We would like to emphasise that this is a single case affecting one quail farm only,” Dar said.
Dr. Arlene Vytiaco, technical spokeswoman for avian flu at the agriculture department, said that while there is a possibility of transmission to humans through excretion and secretion, “the chances are very slim”.
“There is also zero mortality rate,” she said.
To contain the infection, the agriculture chief said authorities have restricted the movements of live birds in the affected area. Cleaning and disinfection are also ongoing as well as contact tracing to determine the origin of the virus.
The Yucatan Times
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