Treñas: Be vigilant on swine flu outbreak

ILOILO CITY – “An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure,” must be in the mind of city mayor Jerry P. Treñas by asking constituents here to be vigilant on the swine flu outbreak currently rocking the United States and Mexico.
Treñas said that people must report at once any suspicion of an outbreak case in the barangays but reiterated that no swine flu outbreak is reported in the Philippines.
“Health and agriculture authorities reported that the country is safe from swine flu as of today, but the virus continues to spread,” Treñas said.
However, the health department in Western Visayas said that it is still safe to eat pork and other pork processed products in the region since there is no reported case of swine flu.
Dr. Jessie Glenn Alonsabe, head, Regional Epidemiology Surveillance Unit (RESU), said the public should be wary of eating too much pork due to its fat content. But he said the people should be vigilant because spread of virus is unstoppable.
On the other hand, the Department of Agriculture (DA) and Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) are mounting measures through stringent biosecurity and border control steps to prevent a domestic outbreak of swine influenza (SI) in response to the laboratory-confirmed cases of human infections in Mexico and the United States.
Agriculture Reg. Dir. Larry Nacionales said that no harm done for being vigilant and there is nothing to worry about for it is safe to eat properly cooked pork as there is no SI outbreak in the country.
BAI is imposing stricter biosecurity measures and farm accreditation systems as well as strengthening quarantine checkpoints to prevent the transport and ensure the proper disposal, of sick pigs, so these animals do not end up in the human food chain.
Nacionales said that Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap has already ordered the BAI to lift the restriction in the use of SI vaccine and encourage hog farmers to regularly vaccinate their pigs against SI as the vaccine will be readily available.
The World Health Organization (WHO) reported in its website that as of April 26, 2009, the Mexican government reported 18 laboratory-confirmed SI human cases while the US government reported 20 laboratory-confirmed human cases.

By Lydia C. Pendon