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Bad drugs, not bird flu, killed chickens
First posted 01:18am (Mla time) Oct 09, 2005
By Christine Gaylican
Inquirer News Service


LOCAL animal experts yesterday declared the Philippines was still free of the deadly bird flu virus that has ravaged other Southeast Asian countries after tests taken on 50 dead chickens on a farm near Calumpit, Bulacan, yielded negative results.

"Blood samples taken from at least two birds indicate that they did not die of bird flu but of defective drugs that were given them with their drinking water," said Bureau of Animal Industry Director Davinio Catbagan in a phone interview yesterday.

Government veterinarians had rushed to the village on Friday and ran laboratory tests on blood samples overnight after interviewing the poultry raisers who had administered an antibiotic to their chickens that had been ill with cold-like symptoms.

The veterinarians found that the chickens died from drinking water contaminated by the "unlabeled antibiotic" bought in the local market and ruled out bird flu as the cause, said Catbagan.

According to Catbagan, the antibiotic capsules mixed with the water only worsened the condition of the chickens and even caused their deaths. He declined to identify the antibiotic.

He said the police were investigating the source of the drug.

"Definitely it was not avian flu and it was a non-viral disease," he said.

"This is to assure the public that we are still free of the avian influenza," he added.

Catbagan noted that 20 chickens that did not drink the infected water were unaffected.

Government authorities have been wary of flu-like symptoms occurring in poultry in Calumpit where a low-risk strain of bird flu was discovered in a duck farm in July.

The discovery prompted officials to impose a three-kilometer quarantine zone around the farm, where 230 ducks were culled. The ducks may have been infected by migratory birds, officials said at the time.

That farm is about two kilometers from the village where the chickens died.

The Department of Agriculture and its attached agencies and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources have been closely monitoring towns nationwide that are near or surrounded by marshlands, which could be primary destinations of migratory birds the remaining months of the year.

Health experts fear migratory birds could carry the virus into the country.

The Bird Flu Prevention Task Force has begun monitoring nine of 20 priority areas frequented by migratory birds, which are known carriers of the virus.

Among the areas monitored are the Candaba Swamp in Pampanga; Agusan provinces; Ilocos Norte; Zambonga peninsula; Tuguegarao in Cagayan; Cebu; Isabela, and Palawan and Victoria in Laguna. With an Associated Press report