5 Hog farm workers have Ebola-Reston

[HenryN]

Hog farm worker has Ebola-Reston

First time strain infects humans

Agence France-Presse
First Posted 15:31:00 01/23/2009

Filed Under: Health, Diseases


MANILA, Philippines -- (UPDATE 2) A pig farm worker has tested positive for the Ebola-Reston virus, Health Secretary Francisco Duque and the World Health Organization said Friday.
The strain is different from the Ebola sub-types found in Africa that cause deadly hemorrhagic fever in humans.
Duque told a news conference that the farm worker carries the virus's antibodies in his blood.
"Otherwise he is healthy and has no sign of any sickness," he said.
Duque would not name the man or give his age.
Duque said health authorities were still trying to find out how the farmer got the virus.
He said they were not prepared to say if the farm worker was infected by pigs.
The announcement came at the end of a WHO-led mission to the Philippines that investigated the viral outbreak on pig farms last year.
The government earlier quarantined several farms in the northern Philippine towns of Pandi and Talavera after the Ebola-Reston virus was discovered there.
This Ebola strain, which is found only in the Philippines, had been confined to monkeys.
But the latest outbreak among pigs was the first time it has jumped species, and later infected humans.
Duque also clarified that only four pigs had tested positive for the virus among about 6,000 tested by authorities between July and September 2008.
Ebola-Reston was first detected in 1989 in laboratory monkeys sent from the Philippines to Reston, Virginia, in the United States.

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/topsto...90123-185143/Hog-farm-worker-has-Ebola-Reston

 

[HenryN]

Re: Hog farm worker has Ebola-Reston

Re: Hog farm worker has Ebola-Reston

• <SMALL>JANUARY 23, 2009, 6:14 A.M. ET</SMALL>

<!-- ID: SB123270759152909941 --><!-- TYPE: Health --><!-- DISPLAY-NAME: --><!-- PUBLICATION: The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition --><!-- DATE: 2009-01-23 06:14 --><!-- COPYRIGHT: Dow Jones & Company, Inc. --><!-- ORIGINAL-ID: --><!-- article start --><!--CODE=SUBJECT SYMBOL=OUSBCODE=SUBJECT SYMBOL=OWONCODE=SUBJECT SYMBOL=OASNCODE=STATISTIC SYMBOL=FREECODE=INDUSTRY SYMBOL=DHC--><H1>Philippine Farm Worker Tests Positive for Ebola-Reston </H1>

By JAMES HOOKWAY

The Philippine government and global health authorities on Friday said a pig farm worker in the northern Philippines has tested positive for the Ebola-Reston virus.
The strain is different from the Ebola sub-types found in Africa which cause deadly hemorrhagic fever in humans, and it has so far proved harmless whenever it has infected people.
In October, Philippine officials informed U.S. health authorities that the Ebola-Reston virus ? previously confined to monkeys ? had been detected in pigs for the first time at two farms. That discovery worried health specialists because besides being an important source of food for humans, pigs are closer than monkeys to humans in their ability to harbor viruses, raising concerns that the virus could mutate into a more harmful form.
In December, the Philippines invited specialists from the World Health Organization and other global health agencies on a risk assessment mission to the country. As part of their tests, the WHO-led assessment team found one pig farm worker had tested positive for the Ebola-Reston virus, and had been infected between 6 months and 18 months ago. He isn't showing any symptoms, Philippine Health Secretary Francisco Duque said.
A WHO official said there wasn't sufficient information to determine how infected man contracted the virus. The WHO-led team and the Philippine government are continuing their investigation into how the man contracted Ebola-Reston, and how the virus entered the Philippines' pig population.
Mr. Duque, the health secretary, said 50 workers in all had been tested. "This represents a negligible risk to human health," he said at a news conference in Manila.
Only four pigs tested positive for the virus among 6,000 tested by Philippine authorities between July and September last year, Mr. Duque said. The Philippines canceled what was to be its first ever commercial export of pork, to Singapore, as a result.
Write to James Hookway at james.hookway@awsj.com

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123270759152909941.html

 

[Giuseppe]

Re: Hog farm worker has Ebola-Reston

Re: Hog farm worker has Ebola-Reston

Ebola May Have Passed From a Pig to a Human - NYTimes.com

Ebola May Have Passed From a Pig to a Human

By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
Published: January 23, 2009

In the first known case of what may be transmission of the Ebola virus from a pig to a human, a pig handler in the Philippines has tested positive for a strain of the virus, world health officials and the Philippine government announced Friday.


But the strain ? Ebola Reston ? is not known to be dangerous to humans, and the worker, who was infected at least six months ago, is healthy, officials said.

The development is worrying because pigs are mixing vessels for other human and animal viruses, like flu, and because it shows that pigs might also be able to transmit the lethal strains of Ebola. Far more humans are in regular contact with pigs than with apes, monkeys or bats, the other known hosts.

But Dr. Juan Lubroth, chief of animal health at the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, said there was ?more need to investigate than to worry? and still many unanswered questions.

Ebola Reston, normally a monkey virus, was first found in pigs last year in the Philippines. Health authorities closed two farms and took blood samples from 6,000 pigs and 50 workers on the farms and in slaughterhouses. Only four pigs and the one worker tested positive, the Philippine health secretary, Francisco Duque, said at a news conference in Manila.

Dr. Lubroth said the first pigs tested were very sick, but turned out to have more than one infection, including a virulent reproductive and respiratory syndrome. ,The Ebola Reston may not have been what sickened them.

?But farmers, of course, would prefer to have pigs without Ebola,? he said. ?So we want to do more testing to see what they can do to protect them.?

Broader sampling will determine, among other things, whether the disease is more common in pigs and humans than was known, whether it causes fever and how long its incubation period is.

Ebola Reston was first found in monkeys from the Philippines that died after arriving at a laboratory in Reston, Va., in 1989. Antibodies to it were found in more than 20 workers in several laboratories, but it is not known to have caused more than a mild flu.

By contrast, the Zaire, Sudan and Bundibugyo strains of Ebola, found in African apes, cause fatal hemorrhagic fever in humans.

It is not known how the pigs were infected, but Dr. Lubroth noted that studies in Africa found Ebola viruses in fruit bats. Similar bats live in the Philippines, and fruit bats are thought to have transmitted Nipah virus to pigs, possibly through their droppings or dead bodies.

Even if the Ebola Reston virus can be shared between pigs and people, there is little chance it will mutate to become more lethal, said Dr. Pierre Rollin, acting chief of special pathogens for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who also visited the Philippines for the investigation.

?This virus is very stable, not like flu or H.I.V.,? he said. ?Previously, when the virus went from primates to humans, it did not change. The identical virus was found in both.?

Also, humans do not carry other members of the filovirus family that could mix with it, the way that influenza strains from birds, pigs and human can swap parts of genes.

The infection does suggest that pigs could transmit lethal Ebola, the villain of germ-terror movies like ?The Hot Zone.? Fortunately, Dr. Rollin noted, there are no large pig-farming operations in Sudan, a Muslim country, in rural Zaire or in most other places where the fatal strains flourish.

?It?s probably a rare event that pigs get infected,? said Dr. Thomas Ksiazek, a pathogens specialist at the University of Texas?s medical school in Galveston. ?It hasn?t led to a past catastrophe. We?d know about a catastrophe.?
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<cite cite="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/24/health/24ebola.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss">Ebola May Have Passed From a Pig to a Human - NYTimes.com</cite>

 

[Shiloh]

Re: Hog farm worker has Ebola-Reston

Re: Hog farm worker has Ebola-Reston

Source: http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/nation/01/29/09/doh-ebola-reston-virus-contained

DOH: Ebola-Reston virus contained

abs-cbnNEWS.com | 01/29/2009 7:58 PM


The Department of Health (DOH) said on Thursday that the ebola-reston virus has already been contained, and there is no sign that the virus is spreading or infecting other people.

Dr. Enrique Tayag, Director of the National Epidemiology Center, said the quarantine in hog farms currently in effect over Bulacan and Nueva Ecija will be lifted within the week.

Last Friday, the DOH confirmed that one Filipino has tested positive for the antibodies to the Ebola-Reston virus (ERV) but has not exhibited any sign of illness from the infection.

Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said tests done by the US Center for Disease Control (CDC) showed that the person was likely exposed to the Ebola strain more than six months ago.

"The person is healthy and has had no serious illness in the past 12 months," Tayag said Friday.

Duque said the human blood sample tested positive for ERV IgG antibodies, which manifests only when the person has been exposed to ERV more than six months ago. Local and international health experts are currently investigating how the person was exposed to ERV, he said.

He said the health department took blood samples from at least 50 possibly exposed individuals in the two quarantined commercial farms in Bulacan and Pangasinan. He said DOH has yet to receive the results of the other blood tests from the CDC.

Experts from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Organization for Animal Health and the World Health Organization are in the Philippines to investigate the discovery of a strain of the Ebola virus in some dead pigs in the Philippines.

The Philippines had asked the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) for help in stopping the spread of Ebola-Reston virus after an infection was found in some hog farms last year.

The presence of the Ebola-Reston virus in some pigs in two commercial farms and two backyard farms in the country was the first such case anywhere in the world.

Duque said that in the past, humans who were exposed to ERV-infected monkeys later tested positive for antibodies and did not get seriously ill.

He said the highest risk of exposure occurred with direct contact to blood and other fluids of the infected animals. With reports from Ni?a Corpuz, ABS-CBN News, and David Dizon, abs-cbnNEWS.com

as of 01/29/2009 8:00 PM

 

[Giuseppe]

Re: Hog farm worker has Ebola-Reston

Re: Hog farm worker has Ebola-Reston

Ebola Reston virus detected pigs in the Philippines - Eurosurveillance

Eurosurveillance, Volume 14, Issue 4, 29 January 2009

News

Ebola Reston virus detected pigs in the Philippines

Editorial team 1
1. European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, Stockholm, Sweden

Citation style for this article: Editorial team. Ebola Reston virus detected pigs in the Philippines. Euro Surveill. 2009;14(4)ii=19105. Available online: http://www.eurosurveillance.org/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleId=19105


In October 2008, Ebola Reston virus (REBOV) infection was confirmed for the first time in pigs in the Philippines after an increase in pig mortality in swine farms had prompted the Government of the Philippines to initiate laboratory investigations.


Samples from 28 dead pigs taken between May and September 2008, were sent to the Plum Island Animal Disease Center in New York where they tested positive for porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) virus (a common infection in pigs in Asia).

In samples of six of these animals, that came from two of the affected farms, co-infection with REBOV was confirmed [1,2].

Both farms were quarantined and a voluntary ban on the export of pork was instituted in the country.

Viruses of the genus Ebolavirus (Filoviridae family) are well known for causing severe haemorrhagic fever outbreaks in humans in Africa with a mortality rate ranging from 25% to more than 90%.

REBOV is a distinct species of this genus that is found in the Philippines and differs from the African Ebola species. It was first reported in 1989 from several quarantine facilities in Reston, Virginia, United States (US), when wild-caught crab-eating monkeys (Macaca fascicularis) imported from the Philippines became ill, and some died. The affected animals originated from a monkey facility in the Philippines in Calamba, Laguna, where both dead and healthy monkeys were found antigen-positive for REVOV in 1996 [3].

Transmission of the virus among monkeys mainly occurred through direct contact with blood and secretions or by injection with virus-contaminated syringes. After the closure of the infected facility by the government in 1997, no further detection of REBOV was reported.

Around 25 people who had occupational contact with infected or dead monkeys have been confirmed to have sero-converted in connection with monkey outbreaks since the first recognition of the virus. All infections occurred in young, healthy males and infections were mostly asymptomatic with one case of mild respiratory symptoms. [1]

Responding to the detection of REBOV in pigs in the Philippines, an international assessment was organised in early January 2009, with representation from the Departments of Agriculture and Health in Manila, (WHO), Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Samples (blood and tissue) were taken at the two affected farms for further analysis of REBOV serology and antigen detection at the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine in Manila and at the US CDC for genetic detection (PCR) and antigenic characterisation.

Preliminary findings indicate that a blood sample from one healthy human tested positive for REBOV [4].

The fact that the discovery of REBOV in pigs was fortuitious, shows that the virus may have been present but not recognised in this animal population in the past. The Philippine authorities have taken precautionary measures including a stop of pork export to minimise the risk of infection for humans.

Overall the current risk for human infections with REBOV, which is known to be destroyed by cooking, is estimated to be very low.

References
1. World Health Organization (WHO). Ebola Reston found in domestic pigs in the Philippines. Geneva, Switzerland: WHO; 2009. Available from: http://www.who.int/csr/disease/influenza/communications/QAebolareston/en/index.html [accessed on 29 January 2009]
2. Cyranoski D. Ebola outbreak has experts rooting for answers. Nature. 2009;457(7228): 364-5.
3. Miranda ME, Ksiazek TG, Retuya TJ, Khan AS, Sanchez A, Fulhorst CF, et al. Epidemiology of Ebola (subtype Reston) virus in the Philippines, 1996. J Infect Dis. 1999;179 Suppl 1:S115-9.
4. Department of Health Republic of the Philippines. Joint FAO-OIE-WHO team reports progress on Mission; Ebola Reston Virus. Manila, Republic of the Philippines: Department of Heath; 2009. Available from: www.doh.gov.ph [accessed on 29 January 2009]
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<cite cite="http://www.eurosurveillance.org/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleId=19105">Eurosurveillance - View Article</cite>

 

[Giuseppe]

Re: Hog farm worker has Ebola-Reston

Re: Hog farm worker has Ebola-Reston

Reuters AlertNet - Philippines says finds four new human Ebola cases

Philippines says finds four new human Ebola cases

30 Jan 2009 06:57:56 GMT
Source: Reuters
MANILA, Jan 30 (Reuters) -

Four more people in the Philippines have been discovered infected by the Ebola-Reston virus and the possibility of pig-to-human transmission cannot be dismissed, the government said on Friday.


It was not a major health risk, Health Secretary Francisco Duque told a news conference, adding that the government was however widening testing of people who might have been in contact with sick pigs at hog farms placed under quarantine since October 2008.

"The Ebola-Reston virus is both an animal and human health issue, but we still consider this as a low risk situation to human health," Duque said.

He said experts from the World Health Organisation (WHO), Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) had been asked to determine the source and risk of the Ebola-Reston virus in pigs and impact on food security.

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 it is the first case of a jump from hogs.

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.

Last week, the government said at least 50 workers in the two farms were exposed to the virus but only one person tested positive. This person has not shown any symptoms and has remained healthy.

Duque said four new cases had been found and these people possibly had direct contact with sick pigs. Three of them were farm workers while one was a butcher, he added.

"At this time, the possibility of pig-to-human transmission cannot be dismissed," Duque said.

"Contact tracing of all five positive individuals is ongoing. It is a standard procedure to determine health risks to humans who are in close contract with positive individuals."

He said all the four men who were found positive remain healthy and have not been seriously ill in the past 12 months.

FARM PRACTICES
Davinio Catbagan, director of the bureau of animal industry, said tissue samples from 140 pigs from the two quarantined farms had been sent abroad for tests.

Earlier tests on more than 1,000 blood samples from pigs in the two affected farms had yielded negative results.

"No current unusual pig illness has been detected in these two farms," Catbagan said, adding only two pigs died when the Ebola-Reston virus was discovered in October 2008.

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

The government has called on the public to report unusual pig deaths or illness, cautioning consumers from buying cheap pork and to fully cook meat bought from reputable sources.

Duque said they also asked commercial and backyard farms to practice safe farming and biosecurity measures to prevent and contain any future outbreaks.

(Reporting by Manny Mogato; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Sugita Katyal)
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<cite cite="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/MAN287924.htm">Reuters AlertNet - Philippines says finds four new human Ebola cases</cite>

 

[Giuseppe]

Re: Hog farm worker has Ebola-Reston

Re: Hog farm worker has Ebola-Reston

Philippines reports four more workers infected with Ebola strain - Xinhua

Philippines reports four more workers infected with Ebola strain

www.chinaview.cn 2009-01-30 12:15:37 Print
MANILA, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) --

The Philippine health authority on Friday reported that three pig farm workers and a slaughter house worker were found carrying antibodies of a strain of Ebola virus which might have jumped from sick hogs to human but has yet posed immediate threat to the public health.


Health Secretary Francisco Duque told a news conference that the four individuals who were tested positive of antibodies of Ebola-Reston virus might have been infected through direct contact with sick pigs. But Duque said all the four males, aged 22 to 52, "are all healthy and have not been seriously ill in the past 12 months."

Ebola-Reston, unlike its African counterparts which are proven deadly to humans, was first found on monkeys shipped from the Philippines to Reston, Virginia, the United States in 1989. The Philippine authority said tests done late last year found hogs from a selective few swine farms in the north were carrying Ebola-Reston virus. It is the first time in the world a strain of Ebola virus was found on swine, a food-producing animal category.

An investigation team composed of experts from the World Health Organization, World Organization for Animal Health and the Food and Agriculture Organization confirmed last week the first human infection among pig handlers in the Philippines, raising the possibility of a hog-human transmission of the virus.

Duque said a total of 77 blood samples from people who might have been exposed to the virus have been tested and 37 among them were sent to the United States for further testing. Dr. Soe Nyunt-U, the country representative of World Health Organization, said the incident is "an important human health issue" but it is still considered a low risk situation to public health provided that proper procedure is enforced on hog handling and pork products preparation.

He said the fact that the four are carrying antibodies means that they were infected more than six months ago and no virus is found in their bodies now, and thus the four individuals are not contagious to others.

Health experts said they have not found evidence of human-to-human transmission as of now. "But there are still a lot of unanswered questions and a lot of things we don't know because it is the first time Ebola strain was found on swine," said Nyunt-U, who declined to say when WHO would rate the situation as a high public health risk one.

The Department of Agriculture has maintained the quarantine of farms in Bulacan and Pangasinan provinces and is conducting ransom tests on hog farms throughout the country to monitor the virus spread. The authority said the Philippines' pork export has been temporarily halted and the incident's implication to food safety is under examination.

Editor: Pliny
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<cite cite="http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-01/30/content_10736192.htm">Philippines reports four more workers infected with Ebola strain_English_Xinhua</cite>

 

[HenryN]

Re: Hog farm worker has Ebola-Reston

Re: Hog farm worker has Ebola-Reston

Breaking News / Nation <TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top align=left width=0 bgColor=#cccccc height=0>

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><!-- Gray Horizontal Line End --><TABLE width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/nation/view/20090130-186487/4-more-people-with-Ebola8213govt</TD></TR><TR><TD><TABLE width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>4 more people with Ebola--gov?t

WHO won?t rule out pig to human transmission

</TD></TR><TR><TD>Agence France-Presse
</TD></TR><TR><TD>Posted date: January 30, 2009
</TD></TR><TR><TD>
MANILA, Philippines -- (UPDATE 2) Four more persons in the Philippines have tested positive for a strain of the Ebola virus that is not deadly to humans, taking the number of human cases to five, the government said Friday. The Philippine government and World Health Organization (WHO) Friday refused to rule out the possibility that the five men so far confirmed infected -- four workers from pig farms in Bulacan, Pangasinan and Valenzuela City, and a butcher from a Pangasinan slaughterhouse -- may have contracted a non-lethal strain of the Ebola virus from infected pigs.
One farm worker was last week confirmed to have been infected by the disease.
Health Secretary Francisco Duque said Friday the five human cases were four pig farm workers and a butcher who tested positive for Immunoglobulin G (IgG), an antibody against the Ebola-Reston virus.
The presence of ERV IgG antibodies indicates that a patient may have contracted the virus but is effectively protected against it.
A UN team lead by the WHO said all the men -- who are aged between 22 and 52 -- are well and no longer carry the virus after being able to expel it from their systems.
If a link is proved between the outbreak in the animals and the men, it would be the first time humans have contracted the disease from pigs, although there was no firm evidence of that so far, officials said.
Julie Hall, a member of the UN investigating team, told a news conference that it was a "low-risk situation and an important situation for animal and human health."
However, she said she agreed with an earlier statement by Duque that a swine-to-human transmission of the virus "cannot be dismissed."
"There are still a lot of unanswered questions about this particular virus," Hall said.
"These are humans who are young, fit and healthy," she said, adding there was no telling what the virus could have done "if other individuals who do not have robust immune systems were to be infected."
The government quarantined farms in the Philippine towns of Pandi and Talavera after the Ebola-Reston virus was discovered in pigs in July 2008.
The UN sent the team of medical specialists to the Philippines last month after four pigs tested positive for a strain of Ebola that was first found in monkeys exported by the Philippines to a US laboratory in Reston, Virginia.
Ebola-Reston was first detected in 1989 in laboratory monkeys sent from the Philippines to Reston, Virginia, in the United States. Unlike its African counterparts, it has not proved deadly.
The other known Ebola strains are deadly to humans.
Two farms in Bulacan and Pangasinan provinces were quarantined and the health department and the UN team gathered blood samples from 77 people who may have been exposed to the virus.
Duque said three of the five men were from the quarantined farms, but all the men are "healthy and have not been seriously ill in the previous 12 months."
None of the five had been using personal protective equipment, he said.
Of the 77 samples tested at the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM), 37 were sent to the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for further tests.
The workers are not the first human case of the Ebola-Reston virus.
Twenty five people who came into contact with the infected laboratory monkeys in 1989 tested positive for the virus. Only one showed signs of sickness, suffering from flu-like symptoms, but quickly recovered.
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http://services.inquirer.net/print/print.php?article_id=20090130-186487

 

[Giuseppe]

Re: Hog farm worker has Ebola-Reston

Re: Hog farm worker has Ebola-Reston

I think that - at this point - the question is whether the four ERV-antibody-positive workers developed immune response after Ebola-Reston virus contacts with pigs or - more important - with other worker(s) previously infected with the virus, with or without clinical symptoms.

It is obvious that these workers entered in contact with the virus but - a part the case of bat-infected contacts - the only two possible explications are source from pigs or source from humans.

Of course, pigs or pigs carcasses...

It remains also to establish whether these workers are to date free of virus or they have only antibodies anti-ERV from a previous infection, clinical or sub-clinical.

Is Ebola-Reston virus capable to cause infection after a long latency? As happens for example for lyssavirus (Rabies) or lentivirus?

 

[Giuseppe]

Re: Hog farm worker has Ebola-Reston

Re: Hog farm worker has Ebola-Reston

From no. 8:

''"These are humans who are young, fit and healthy," she said, adding there was no telling what the virus could have done "if other individuals who do not have robust immune systems were to be infected."''

(...)

I wonder if these individuals are also tested for other underlying conditions, because no one could establish the fitness and healthy status only from the age... It is possible, further, that people employed in unhygienic activities (such as pig farming in poor countries) could be more exposed to pathogen than general population.

But perhaps the international equipe shipped to Philippines has done all clinical and diagnostic evaluations of these workers...

 

[Giuseppe]

Re: 5 Hog farm workers have Ebola-Reston

WHO | Ebola Reston in pigs and humans in the Philippines

Ebola Reston in pigs and humans in the Philippines

3 February 2009 --

On 23 January 2009, the Government of the Philippines announced that a person thought to have come in contact with sick pigs had tested positive for Ebola Reston Virus (ERV) antibodies (IgG).


On 30 January 2009 the Government announced that a further four individuals had been found positive for ERV antibodies: two farm workers in Bulacan and one farm worker in Pangasinan - the two farms currently under quarantine in northern Luzon because of ERV infection was found in pigs - and one butcher from a slaughterhouse in Pangasinan.

The person announced on 23 January to have tested positive for ERV antibodies is reported to be a backyard pig farmer from Valenzuela City - a neighbourhood within Metro Manila.

The Philippine Department of Health has said that the people who tested positive appear to be in good health and have not suffered from any significant illnesses in the past 12 months.

The investigation team reported that it was possible that all 5 individuals had been exposed to the virus as a result of direct contact with sick pigs.

The use of personal protective equipment (PPE) is not common practice among these animal handlers.

From these observations and previous studies of ERV, the virus has shown it can be transmitted to humans, without resulting in illness. However, the evidence available relates only to healthy adults and it would be premature to conclude the health effects of the virus on all population groups.


The threat to human health is likely to be low for healthy adults but is unknown for all other population groups, such as immuno-compromised persons, persons with underlying medical conditions, pregnant women and children.


The Philippine Government is conducting contact tracing in relation to the five individuals who tested positive for antibodies. In addition, testing is ongoing for other persons who could have come into contact with sick pigs on the two quarantined farms in the provinces of Bulacan and Pangasinan where pigs co-infected with the Porcine Respiratory and Reproductive Syndrome (PRRS) and ERV were reported in 2008.

The two farms remain under quarantine and the Philippine Government is maintaining its voluntary hold of exports of live pigs and fresh and frozen pork meat.

The Philippine Government has announced a combined Department of Health and Department of Agriculture strategy to limit the animal and human health risks of the Ebola Reston Virus and emphasized that local governments, the pig farming industry and the public will play a critical role in the strategy.

Along with its international partners, the WHO will continue to support the Philippine Government in its efforts to gain a better understanding of the Ebola Reston virus, its effects on humans, and the measures that need to be taken to reduce any risks to human health.

RELATED LINKS
- Ebola Reston found in domestic pigs in the Philippines (Frequently asked questions about Ebola Reston virus and human health)
- Disease situation in swine in the Philippines (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations)
- First detection of Ebola-Reston virus in pigs (OIE - World Organisation for Animal Health)
- Ebola-Reston virus in pigs - Philippines, (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
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<cite cite="http://www.who.int/csr/don/2009_02_03/en/index.html">WHO | Ebola Reston in pigs and humans in the Philippines</cite>