Japan maintains ban on chicken imports from RP

TOKYO, Japan – The Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Fishery and Forestry (MAFF) will continue to ban the importation of processed chicken from the Philippines.

This after the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI), an attached agency of the Department of Agriculture (DA), failed to comply with the conditions demanded by the MAFF.

The DA was expecting the MAFF to finally allow the Philippines to resume its shipment of processed or value-added chicken to Japan last Sept. 21 following a 90-day self-imposed ban with reports of a suspected bird flu or avian influenza virus (AI) affecting a duck farm in Bulacan.

The MAFF said it would use the ban to verify the surveillance methods being carried out by the BAI to ensure that the bird flu plague, if and when it exists, is eradicated.

MAFF sources said that BAI failed, among others, to comply with the following requirements: submission of a report containing critical information such as the population of susceptible birds (number of farms and birds by species and region); live bird market (number of establishments, control measures taken at live bird markets); the number of main migratory bird habitat by region; reports of outbreaks (by region, month, type of species, by serotype, by pathogenicity); and tests of AI (results of surveillance, both passive and routine surveillance by regions, month, type of species and pathogencity).

The MAFF also required BAI to submit a report on AI testing methods and results of tests at the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine. Moreover, the Philippines is supposed to report its control measures for AI-infected areas as well as control measures taken in areas with no outbreaks.

At the same time, the MAFF wanted to know "the reason for judging this case (of the affected Bulacan duck farm) as ‘low strain’ although it is assumed that an inoculation test and genetic analysis of cleavage sites have not been conducted because the viruses had not been isolated."

Sources at the MAFF said "it is apparent that BAI might have mishandled the case" by announcing prematurely the occurrence of an AI strain and asking exporters to voluntarily halt its shipments to Japan pending the results of tests conducted by the Australian Animal Health Laboratory (AAHL), the regional reference laboratory for AI of the Paris-based Office International des Epizooties or OIE which is under the World Organization for Animal Health and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

The AAHL has cleared the Philippines and is awaiting the certification from the OIE that the country is bird-flu free.

But MAFF sources here said that the OIE certification will have little bearing on the agency’s decision.

"The Japanese government takes the bird flu virus matter seriously, what it wants is for the Philippines to submit a detailed report that will enable them to make them eventually decide whether or not to lift the ban. It cannot make an exemption because it will set a precedent for countries like Thailand which is still affected with the bird flu plague," an MAFF source explained.

The DA earlier sought exemption from the 90-day temporary ban by Japan of its chicken imports from the Philippines.

"We appealed to the Japanese agriculture and health authorities to allow chicken exports to resume even before the three-month period ends on Sept. 21 on grounds that the Philippines was not afflicted with bird flu or avian influenza, only, that we were exposed to the virus which is not at all the highly-pathogenic strain," said Davinio Catbagan, officer-in-charge of BAI.

Catbagan explained that the 90-day imposition by Japan should only apply to countries that have confirmed bird flu cases, specifically the deadly H5N1 strain that ravaged billion-dollar poultry farms across Asia in 2004.

"The incident in the Philippines was one of mere exposure to the virus, there is no incidence of bird flu at all," he stressed.

Japan has a policy of halting imports of chicken from countries that have been plagued by bird flu.

Industry officials are currently establishing protocols with various embassies to accelerate the resumption of chicken exports.

This year, total chicken exports are projected to expand to eight million kilos from only 1.5 million kilos in 2004. The integrators started shipping value-added chicken cut-ups to Japan, the world’s second biggest importer of chicken when Thailand was struck by bird flu last year. Japan previously imported all of its requirements from Thailand. The Philippines is also exporting day old chicks to Indonesia and Malaysia.