DA bans poultry from Maryland, Missouri due to bird flu
INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Agriculture (DA) temporarily barred the entry of imported poultry originating from Maryland and Missouri in the United States due to bird flu outbreaks reported last month.
The imposed ban is effective immediately via Memorandum Order No. 07 covering domestic and wild birds and their products, including poultry meat, day-old chicks, eggs and semen from two American states.
Following the ban, the agency immediately suspended the processing, evaluation and issuance of sanitary and phytosanitary import clearance to poultry imports from Maryland and Missouri.
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All veterinary quarantine officers/inspectors will stop and confiscate all deliveries into the country.
The import restriction, however, excludes all shipments that are either in transit, loaded or accepted unto port before local authorities transmitted the DA order to US authorities as long as they were slaughtered or produced 14 days before the first outbreak.
American authorities recorded the first outbreak in Caroline County in Maryland and Newton County in Missouri on Jan. 14.
The DA implemented the import ban after the US reported several outbreaks of H5N1 High Pathogenicity Avian Influenza (HPAI) in Maryland and Missouri affecting domestic birds.
The rapid spread of bird flu in the US in a short period since its first laboratory detection necessitates a wider coverage of trade restriction to avoid the spread of this animal disease and protect the local industry, according to the memo.
The Philippines and the US forged a regionalization agreement in 2016 wherein a state-wide ban will only be imposed if at least three American states are infected with avian influenza.
Citing America’s official reports to the World Organisation for Animal Health, both states have three or more counties affected with avian influenza.
The United States is one of the country’s leading source of imported meat, exporting 204.2 million kilograms as of end-November, data from the Bureau of Animal Industry showed.
The volume represents 15.3 percent of the 1.33 billion kg of meat sourced from abroad in the January to November period.
The Philippines still has areas that are infected with bird flu, although the BAI has not recorded positive cases from Feb. 1 to 7.
“There were no ongoing cases since culling/deportation and surveillance activities within the 1-kilometer radius in the previously reported cases were completed,” it said.
