Animal quarantine personnel at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) are intensifying their monitoring and surveillance against poultry or birds — dead, alive or cooked — knowingly and unknowingly being brought into the Philippines by passengers, especially from those coming from countries that are known to be infected with the avian influenza virus.
Dr. Dave Catbagan, NAIA Animal Quarantine Service chief, said their alert status against poultry and their meat products remains high amid the scourge of the avian flu virus.
"We continue to ban importation of live poultry, both wild and domestic, and their meat products," Catbagan told The Star. It was learned that their anti—avian flu virus alert had been up as far back as January 2004.
Catbagan said that their operations had led to the confiscation of thousands of kilos of poultry meat products ranging from Peking duck, dove meat and turkey in the past months.
"We destroy an average of 200 kilos every three weeks of poultry products that we confiscate from passengers at the airport," Catbagan said.
Catbagan said that most of the items were seized from passengers coming from avian flu virus-infected countries such as China.
The Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Animal Industry lists China, as well as Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Pakistan, Hong Kong and South Africa as countries that still have the virus.
"We don’t want the Philippines to join their ranks so we are really dead serious in our campaign," Catbagan said.
For its part, the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) has assured that it will continue with their measures to prevent the entry of the avian flu into the country.
MIAA said that among these measures are the use of thermal scanning for incoming passengers and flight crew men, the use of footbaths to prevent the entry of virus from affected countries, additional medical personnel deployment at the MIAA Bureau of Quarantine, and continued coordination with concerned offices to ensure that guidelines and measures for the prevention of avian flu is implemented and closely monitored.
In a statement, MIAA general manager Alfonso Cusi said they have been working closely with the Department of Health to ensure that no health risk or threat will imperil the country.
"We at MIAA have established ways and means to protect and safeguard our countrymen," Cusi said.