Albay 2nd district Rep. Joey Salceda (Rep. Salceda's office)

Saying that it will inevitably come to the Philippines, Albay 2nd district Rep. Joey Salceda is prodding the Department of Agriculture (DA) to prepare for a possible outbreak of the "evolving” H5N1 avian influenza or bid flu virus. Salceda, in a statement Saturday, June 3, said that countries like Vietnam, Egypt, and China are already undertaking massive poultry vaccination programs, and that France is doing it in the last quarter of the year. “The nature of these things is that they come. It will come to the Philippines. No doubt,” said Salceda, a vice chairman of the House Committee on Agriculture and Food. In particular, Salceda suggested for President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. "to constitute an IATF (Inter-Agency Task Force) for animal disease". Marcos is the concurrent DA secretary. When the Covid-19 pandemic first hit the Philippines, an IATF was activated to oversee all government responses against the contagion. “In any case, we need contingencies. Inflation momentum has definitely halted. But an avian flu pandemic will threaten our food supply, especially chicken and eggs, both cheap sources of protein," he said. Salceda identified two "high risk areas" for such a bird flu outbreak: Batangas in Luzon and Cebu in the Visayas. "The hotspots will really be Batangas and Cebu since both are heavy on avian migration and heavy on poultry raising – number 1 and number 3 for top producing provinces. If any wildlife-to-farm contagion is going to happen in the country with H5N1, you can bet on it happening in these two. So, our surveillance and mitigation efforts should be concentrated in these provinces,” noted the Bicolano. Citing reports, Salceda said the rapidly evolving avian influenza is now affecting mammals and migratory birds in South America.