Ebola-Reston in Phillipines - Human and Animals Cases

[Giuseppe]

Reuters AlertNet - Manila to slaughter 6,000 pigs to stop Ebola spread

Manila to slaughter 6,000 pigs to stop Ebola spread

23 Feb 2009 11:08:03 GMT
Source: Reuters
MANILA, Feb 23 (Reuters) -

The Philippines will slaughter 6,000 pigs at a hog farm north of the capital Manila to prevent the spread of the Ebola-Reston virus, health and farm officials said on Monday.


But the government has lifted a quarantine on a second hog farm after tests by experts from the World Health Organisation (WHO), World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and Food and the Agriculture Organisation (FAO) showed no more signs of the disease.

The country has more than 13 million heads of swine and the discovery of Ebola-Reston on two hog farms north of Manila was isolated, the government said.

"There is ongoing viral transmission in Bulacan ... as a precautionary measure, depopulation will be carried out in the Bulacan farm," Health Secretary Francisco Duque told reporters, referring to the farm just north of Manila.

The government said 6,000 pigs would be killed, burned and buried as experts sought to determine the source of Ebola-Reston in pigs as well as pig-to-pig and from pig-to-human transmission.

Duque said 147 human samples have been tested for Ebola, but only six have tested positive. But all six remain healthy, he added.

"Ebola-Reston poses a low risk to human health at this time," Duque said.

It is the first time the virus has been found outside monkeys and the first time it has been found in pigs. The virus had previously jumped from monkeys to humans but this was the first case of a jump from hogs.

The Ebola-Reston virus was found in the Philippines as early as the late 1980s and 25 people were found infected after contact with sick monkeys. But only one developed flu-like symptoms and later recovered.

(Reporting by Manny Mogato; Editing by Sugita Katyal)
-

<cite cite="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/MAN392763.htm">Reuters AlertNet - Manila to slaughter 6,000 pigs to stop Ebola spread</cite>

[Giuseppe]

Re: Reuters AlertNet - Manila to slaughter 6,000 pigs to stop Ebola spread

Philippines. Ebola-Reston in pigs. Another farm worker tested positive for EBV-antibodies (2/24/2009) [RSOE EDIS]

PHILIPPINE health officials said Tuesday that a pig farm worker had become the sixth person to test positive for antibodies to the non-lethal Ebola-Reston virus.


'Samples taken from a slaughterhouse worker in the northern Philippines showed signs of antibodies for Ebola-Reston, indicating he may have been infected with the virus in the past,' a health department statement said.

The slaughterhouse worker, who has not been identified, had no direct contact with the sick pigs, the department said. The announcement came almost a month after four pig farm workers and a butcher tested positive for the antibodies.

Scientists are still trying to determine if the six caught the virus from pigs. If such a link is proved, it would be the first time humans have contracted the disease from pigs.

The government earlier imposed a quarantine on two farms in Bulacan and Pangasinan provinces after samples showed pigs were carrying the Ebola-Reston strain first found in monkeys exported from the Philippines to the US.

Samples from the farms showed that the virus was still spreading in Bulacan but not in Pangasinan, health officials said. While recommending the lifting of the quarantine in the Pangasinan farm, the health department have ordered some 6,000 pigs to be culled in Bulacan.

The Ebola-Reston strain is not deadly to humans, unlike the other known Ebola strains found in Africa.)
-

<cite cite="http://visz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/woalert_read.php?cid=20628&lang=eng">RSOE EDIS</cite>

[Giuseppe]

Re: Ebola-Reston in Phillipines - Human and Animals Cases

Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome, Philippines (3/17/2009) [WAHID Interface - OIE]

Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome, Philippines

Information received on 17/03/2009 from Mr Davinio P. Catbagan, Chief Veterinary Officer, Department of Agriculture, Office of the Director of the Bureau of Animal Industry, QUEZON CITY, Philippines

-- Summary

-- Epidemiology
Report type Follow-up report No. 1 (Final report)
Start date 10/07/2008
Date of first confirmation of the event 30/10/2008
Report date 17/03/2009
Date submitted to OIE 17/03/2009
Reason for notification Unexpected increase in morbidity or mortality of a listed disease
Manifestation of disease Clinical disease
Causal agent Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus
This event pertains to the whole country
Related reports
* Immediate notification (10/12/2008)
* Follow-up report No. 1 (17/03/2009)

-- Source of the outbreak(s) or origin of infection ?
* Unknown or inconclusive
* Introduction of new live animals

-- Epidemiological comments

* Ebola-Reston was detected amongst the samples screened for PRRS.
* A disease investigation showed that two commercial pig farms were affected.
* These farms have only apparently healthy animals present in the herd.
* These farms have been under strict quarantine control since 10 December 2008 up to present (lifting of quarantine is under process for one of the farms).
* A joint mission from FAO/OIE/WHO and USDA-CDC instituted further in depth investigation of the disease incident on 5-15 January 2009.
* Samples were collected from 141 animals (70/71 per farm) using a random selection process.
* Blood and organs were collected for testing.
* Animal caretakers were screened from these farms for Ebola-Reston antigens/antibodies.
* There was no increase in distribution, morbidity or mortality from animals in the affected farms.

-- Increased Distribution

* Disease Impact
Increased - Province - Species - Change
- Morbidity - BULACAN - Swine - 20%=>5%
- Morbidity - PANGASINAN - Swine - 100%=>5%
- Mortality - BULACAN - Swine - 20%=>5%

-- Control measures
Measures applied
* Movement control inside the country
* Screening
* Vaccination in response to the outbreak (s)
Administrative division- Species - Total Vaccinated - Details
- BULACAN - Swine - 5000 - Ongoing

* Disinfection of infected premises/establishment(s)
* No treatment of affected animals

Measures to be applied
* No other measures

-- Future Reporting
The event is resolved. No more reports will be submitted.
-

<cite cite="http://www.oie.int/wahis/public.php?page=single_report&pop=1&reportid=7819" >WAHID Interface - OIE World Animal Health Information Database</cite>

[Shiloh]

Re: Ebola-Reston in Phillipines - Human and Animals Cases

Source: http://www.visayandailystar.com/2009...inessnews3.htm

BAI planning to conduct Ebola-Reston
surveillance next in Visayas, Mindanao

The Bureau of Animal Industry is planning to conduct a surveillance for Ebola-Reston virus in the Visayas and Mindanao hog farms after it concludes the activity in Central Luzon and Southern Tagalog.

BAI Director Davinio Catbagan, who attended the opening rites of the 1st Provincial Livestock and Poultry Fair that ended Saturday, said that after depopulating the 6,210 pigs in the farm in Pandi, Bulacan found positive for Ebola-Reston virus, the BAI is continuing with its surveillance activities.

Catbagan said the World Health Organization mission that came to the Philippines on January 5 to 10 will also continue to monitor the results.

?We will see after the surveillance if there is no more Ebola-Reston virus. If the results say there is none, they (WHO mission) will have to validate it, he said.

Catbagan said the BAI needs to finish the surveillance in the two regions in Luzon and part of Mindanao, particularly General Santos City, because the Department of Agriculture wants to proceed with its pork exports.

We need to know which areas do not have Ebola-Reston virus infection, he said.

The DA put on hold its port shipment from General Santos to Singapore last December in the wake of the Ebola-Reston virus scare.

Catbagan, however, clarified that the shipment was not held because of Ebola-Reston virus but rather because of the Bulacan incident.

?We held the shipment because it is an international protocol that when something happens in the country of origin, you don?t export,? he said.

Catbagan said he is optimistic that the Philippines will be able to recover its losses by the next shipment.

Although the two container vans of pork from General Santos were not shipped abroad, the meat were sold locally, he said.*NLG

[Chuck]

Re: Ebola-Reston in Phillipines - Human and Animals Cases

http://www.thespec.com/News/BreakingNews/article/597189

Ebola virus traced to pigs

July 09, 2009
Joseph Hall
Torstar News Service

Pity the poor pigs. Seems they can catch anything but a break.

First they were the source of the H1N1 virus that's now reached pandemic proportions around the globe.

And now a form of Ebola ? a contagious hemorrhagic ailment that can make the worst swine flu look like a case of the sniffles ? has been found in pigs, a new study in the journal Science says.

The disease, which can cause bleeding from every cavity and organ and an agonizing death, was thought to reside largely within remote monkey populations.

But the confirmation of Ebola in at least two pig herds in the Philippines has placed the disease a disconcerting step closer to humans, researchers says.

"Humans are in close proximity to swine, we're in contact with them all the time," says Michael McIntosh, the senior study author.

"And with the swine in close contact with each other they can spread it amongst themselves and then you can get a large amount of virus. You have to worry about it getting amplified in swine."

Fortunately, McIntosh says, the disease strain found in the Philippine pigs last year was the Reston Ebola virus, to which humans are resistant.

But Reston is still classified as a level four biological safety hazard ? the most dangerous ranking ? because it so closely resembles all other known Ebola strains, says McIntosh, a top scientist with New York's Plum Island Animal Disease Center.

"And all the other members of this virus family can cause fatal disease in humans, and this virus can cause fatal disease in non-human primates," he says.

What's more, unlike other known strains, which are transmitted through close contact with bodily fluids, Reston Ebola is an airborne virus, making it exponentially more contagious.

More troubling yet, pigs are known to churn out new mutations of many viruses, and this strain of Ebola could behave the same, McIntosh says.

Already there is some evidence of mutation, he says: The Reston viruses collected from infected Philippine pigs showed marked DNA alterations between different samples.

When McIntosh's lab helped identify the swine-based Ebola last year, the World Health Organization and other international groups scrambled to get teams of experts to the offending farms, where both the pigs and their handlers were tested for the virus.

McIntosh says six of the human handlers tested positive for Reston antibodies, but that none had experienced symptoms of the illness.

It's not even clear, McIntosh says, whether the pigs, which were dying in droves, were being killed by Ebola or by another common swine disease that also appeared on viral screens. As well, it's not clear how long the virus has been present in the herds.

And Dr. Bhagirath Singh, head of infectious diseases with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research says the study should not spark panic.

"We don't want to scare anyone, this particular strain does no infect humans, so that's one good thing," says Singh, a University of Western Ontario medical professor.

"The virus did have a contact with humans, but none of the people who were tested had the disease."

Singh says the chance of this particular virus mutating is likely mitigated by the fact that it's been in the pigs for several years

The Reston virus is named after a sleepy Virginia town where it was first identified in a research animal quarantine centre in1989.

A group of macaque monkeys were dying in large numbers at the suburban-based facility. And when U.S. military scientists examined samples of the diseased monkey cells, it sent the fear of God through them.

Not only did the "filo virus" they found teaming in the samples closely resemble previous strains of Ebola that had caused two hideous human outbreaks in Africa and Germany, the Reston strain appeared to be airborne.

In the end, U.S. military personnel sealed off the building and flooded it with deadly gases to destroy all life within.

But if pigs in the Philippines can be infected with Ebola, then so can African swine, experts say. And the African strains of the disease have all proven lethal to humans, with outbreaks that saw 70 per cent mortality rates.

As well, many of the African outbreaks could be traced back to the consumption of monkey meat, which means that some forms of the ailment can be transmitted through the food chain.