RP prepares to complete FMD-free certification
The government will reapply to the World Organization for Animal Health (Office International des Epizooties, or OIE) by December for recognition as being foot-and-mouth disease (FMD)-free without need of vaccination for the remaining Luzon areas that failed to achieve this status last May, an Agriculture official said yesterday.
“We can reapply as early as August to the OIE, but the prescriptive time for Zone 2 [which failed to get certified last May] is in November or December, so we will be applying then,” Rieldrin G. Morales, national coordinator of the Bureau of Animal Industry’s (BAI) FMD Eradication Program, said in a press briefing.
During the 78th General Session of the World Assembly of OIE delegates last May 23-28 in Paris, France, the Philippines was officially given FMD-free certification for two of the three zones in Luzon.
The OIE certified Mindanao as FMD-free without vaccination in May 2001, while the Visayas, Palawan and Masbate followed in May 2002. In April last year, Luzon failed to achieve this status because of continued use of FMD vaccines in some areas, even if there have been no recorded FMD cases since December 2005.
The Luzon area, designated as Zone 2, which failed to secure certification last May consisted of the National Capital Region, or Metro Manila, and CALABARZON, as well as the provinces of Pangasinan, Tarlac, Bulacan, Pampanga, Nueva Ecija, Bataan and Zambales.
The Luzon areas that received certification were Zone 1, consisting of the Cordillera Administrative Region and the Cagayan Valley region, as well as the provinces of Aurora, Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur and La Union, and Zone 3 which consists of MIMAROPA and Bicol regions.
Mr. Morales explained that Zone 2 was not able to get certified last May because of the late withdrawal of vaccination. “Vaccination was withdrawn only in August 2009. For FMD-free accreditation, there should be a prescriptive 12 months without vaccination prior to filing an application to the OIE,” he explained.
BAI Director Efren C. Nuestro is confident that Zone 2 will get certified this time around. “We are confident that Zone 2 will receive its certification, and the whole of the Philippines will be declared FMD-free,” Mr. Nuestro said.
Recognition of FMD-free areas or countries is done only during OIE general assemblies every May, Mr. Nuestro said.
In a separate phone interview, Albert R. T. Lim, Jr., president of the Pork Producers Federation of the Phils., Inc., said “we are really aiming for the whole country to be declared FMD-free” in order to help pave the way for the maiden shipment of pork meat abroad which the government aborted in December 2008 due to the detection of Ebola Reston virus in one hog farm in Pandi, Bulacan.
Mr. Morales said Ebola Reston presented a smaller obstacle than FMD, since Singapore, which was supposed to receive in December 2008 the Philippines’ first pork meat export from South Cotabato-based Matutum Meat Packing Corp., had required only that hogs from which meat would be sourced will be tested for the virus. But he admitted that “right now, we are still waiting for the [test] kits to arrive.”
“For exports, FMD-free status is... required, whereas Ebola [Reston-free certification] is not,” Mr. Morales said.
“So, Ebola [Reston] is not a big problem when it comes to exports.” BusinessWorld
