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Thursday, March 25, 2004
Animal epidemic hits South Cotabato
By Romer S. Sarmiento
KORONADAL CITY -- Veterinary officials in South Cotabato province are seeking for the release of funds from the Provincial Board to contain the outbreak of various diseases that hit four-legged animals in the area.
Among the diseases lately monitored across the province that hit the cows, carabaos and horses were hemorrhagic septecemia, surra and liver fluke infection, according to Dr. Erol Javier, South Cotabato provincial assistant veterinarian.
Hog cholera is also affecting the piggery industry.
"We hope the Provincial Board would release the 1.5 million pesos we're asking the soonest time possible so we can prevent the worsening of the situation," he said.
According to Javier, the situation at the moment "is still controllable and has not yet reached the critical 50-70 percent level infection."
The board members have discussed the matter brought by the veterinary office Tuesday, prompted by the veterinarians' desire for the provincial animal industry to be included under the state of calamity so they can avail part of the calamity fund amounting to at least P12 million.
The PB declared the province last month in a state of calamity brought about by rat and corn hopper infestation in the area's agricultural lands.
Javier claimed the pest infestation in agricultural crops is taking its toll on the animals, saying that the four-legged animals in the province have become malnourished as a result of the crop destruction.
The towns that were reportedly affected by the diseases are Tupi, Polomolok, Tampakan, Tantangan and Surallah. Javier, on the other hand, assured that poultry industry has not been inflicted with any diseases.
Last year, some 500 cows in South Cotabato were hit by ephemeral fever, which was monitored early in the year.
Called the Three-Day Sickness, ephemeral fever is a non-contagious epizootic arthropod-borne viral disease of cattle characterized by sudden onset of fever, depression, stiffness, and lameness.
According to Javier, ephemeral fever occurs every five years and usually as summer approaches.
Javier discouraged animal owners to slaughter and eat their affected animals, saying meat inspectors do not allow the slaughtering and eating of animals afflicted with known diseases.
Meanwhile, veterinary experts and hog raisers in South Cotabato and General Santos City assured the public Wednesday that pigs in the area are still free from the dreaded foot and mouth disease, following a national television report that FMD-infected hogs found in Tondo, Manila originated in the locality.
"Although we are alarmed by the television report, South Cotabato and the adjoining areas are still FMD-free...so there's no cause for the consumers in the area and outside of it to fear that hogs raised in the locality are infected with FMD," said Dr. Erol Javier, South Cotabato provincial assistant veterinarian.
Javier stressed that the hogs stricken with FMD seized at the Nepomuceno Stockyard in Tondo by meat inspectors certainly contacted the disease there.
According to him, before the hogs are shipped out of the Makar Wharf in General Santos, strict quarantine checks are made on them by disease experts from the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) of the Department of Agriculture.
Javier said the infected hogs could have contacted the disease in Metro Manila because after arrival there, the animals are not immediately slaughtered but given days of rest period before they are butchered and disposed to the market.
"It's a fact that Metro Manila, or Luzon for that matter, is still not FMD-free, unlike Mindanao, particularly the Socsksargen area," he stressed.
Although Mindanao has been declared FMD-free, Javier said they are still not taking any chances in South Cotabato province by regularly mobilizing the Barangay Animal Health Workers to monitor the hogs raised in the area for the dreaded disease.
The province produces at least 100,000 hogs annually for butchering, some are brought alive to other parts of the country, he said.
(March 25, 2004 issue)
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