Department of Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol needs all the help he can get if this
outbreak of bird flu is to be under control.
"I have asked the Philippine army to provide us with additional warm bodies to help us in depopulating the farms," Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Pinol told a news conference.
"Six hundred thousand is no mean job. Our personnel are facing a difficult task and we lack people."
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| Agriculture Secretary Piñol, plans to cull 600,000 fowls in San Luis, Pampanga to prevent the spreading of the virus.(photo credit to owner) |
The Agriculture Secretary in earlier
reports stated that the department needs to cull of about 600,000 fowl, in the effort to
control the country’s first case of bird
flu outbreak.
The department has already 200 men in the ground, but only around 20,000 birds had culled since the
outbreak was known.
Brigadier-General Rodel Mairo Alarcon said at least 300
soldiers would be sent to the province on Thursday to assist in the cull of
chicken, quail and ducks.
"The Philippines army and the Armed Forces of the
Philippines is 100 percent in support of this effort," Alarcon said.
Members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines will be
provide protective gears and doses of
Tamiflu, to protect them against any possible infection.
The two farm workers who were suspected to be sick, tested
negative for the virus, Department of Health spokesman Eric Tayag said.
Samples of the virus will be sent to Australia for further
testing for the presence of the N6 variety of the bird flu virus strain.
Generally the virus only affect birds, but the H7N9 strain
hin China has led to human cases which includes death to the person afflicted
with the virus.
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