Officials of Negros Oriental and Negros Occidental are keeping close watch over the entry of poultry products from Luzon to prevent the entry of the ‘bird flu’.
The first shipment to be seized consisted of 6,000 pieces of fertilized duck eggs or balut which arrived Monday at the Dumaguete port.
The 22 crates of balut came from Candaba in Pampanga where bird flu has been reported by Agriculture Sec. Manny Pinol.
The consignee of the eggs, Roxanne Pahayay, said she was told they are safe for human consumption as they were properly cooked, and that they tested negative of the virus through blood samples taken before the shipment.
She said the 6,600 pieces of baluts had a market value of P120,000.
Pahayay supplies balut to vendors in Dumaguete, Siaton, and Sta. Catalina in Negros Oriental, and in the nearby island of Siquijor.
But Veterinary Quarantine Officer Dr. Alfonzo Tundag convinced Pahayay on Tuesday afternoon to have the balut buried.
Dumaguete City Agriculturist William Ablong said that San Miguel Corp., one of the City’s biggest suppliers of dressed chicken, has voluntarily stopped sending over poultry products from Luzon.
Dumaguete’s other suppliers of poultry products are based in Bacolod, Cebu, and Mindanao.
“Bird flu”, also known as avian influenza, was first reported in Pampanga farms on the last week of April, initially affecting a quail farm.
The Department of Agriculture confirmed the avian influenza outbreak only on Aug. 11 after a total of 116,000 birds in farms were identified to have caught the virus, and that 37,000 birds had died by then due to the disease.
Secretary Pinol also confirmed two new cases of bird flu last Thursday in the towns of Jaen and San Isidro in Nueva Ecija. (Judy Flores Partlow and Juancho Gallarde)