International animal health experts to conduct 'risk survey' on Ebola virus

ANGELES CITY – The Paris-based Office International des Epizooties (OIE) – also known as the World Organization for Animal Health – is set to conduct a “risk survey” and determine the source of the Reston-Ebola virus affecting piggeries in Pangasinan, Nueva Ecija and Bulacan, the chief of the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) said yesterday.

The Department of Agriculture has also formally asked the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization to send a team of experts to help in the investigation.

In an interview with The STAR, BAI chief Dr. Divinio Catbagan, meanwhile, ruled out monkeys as the source of the Ebola strain found in the tissue samples of pigs in the quarantined areas.

He corrected wrong information on Internet websites that the Reston-Ebola strain was first found in monkeys from Mindanao in 1989.

“The Reston Ebola was initially discovered in monkeys from Laguna that reached the US where the virus was uncovered in a laboratory in Reston, Virginia,” he said.

He said the monkeys were from a farm called Ferlite and that all them were disposed of after the discovery of the Reston-Ebola in some of them.

He said 25 workers at the farm tested positive for the virus, which he noted disappeared after two months.

Catbagan said that despite the discovery of Reston Ebola in crab-eating monkeys called macaques from Laguna, the Philippines never stopped exporting its monkeys for pets, especially to Germany.

“International standards are strict on animal movements and the fact that other countries continued to take in our monkeys indicated their confidence there has been no danger from the virus,” he said.  

“We have conducted exhaustive studies in the affected piggeries and we have established no connection between monkeys and pigs,” he said.

Apart from the infected tissues confirmed with Reston Ebola by the US laboratory, no further contamination were found in the piggeries.

Catbagan recalled that immediately after the US laboratory released its findings on Reston Ebola in local pigs, government experts collected 94 more samples for examination but found no contamination in them.

Despite this, he said experts from the OIE are expected to arrive soon to conduct a “risk survey” and help find the source of Reston-Ebola that infected the pigs in the three provinces.

But he stressed that since the release of the US lab’s findings, the results of a series of tests on both pigs and humans led to the conclusion that there was no longer any Reston Ebola case in the country.

Catbagan said government health authorities also examined workers at slaughterhouses near the affected piggeries and found no Reston Ebola contamination. – With Marianne Go