The Department of Agriculture (DA) ordered a temporary ban on the importation of domestic and wild birds from the Netherlands after the latter’s notification to the World Organization for Animal Health of local outbreaks of H5 subtype of the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus.
DA said in a memorandum order signed by Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr., the outbreaks were recorded on November 18 with the infection also confirmed by the Wageningen Bioveterinary Research.
Memorandum order No. 56 series of 2024, also suspended the issuance of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Import Clearances by the Bureau of Animal Industry for poultry products from the Netherlands including poultry meat, day-old chicks, eggs and semen.
“All shipments coming from the Netherlands that are in transit/load/accepted unto port before the official communication of this order to the Dutch authorities shall be allowed provided that the products were slaughtered/produced on or before November 3, 2024,” Tiu Laurel said in the document signed last Monday.
As of September 2024, the Netherlands provided a total of 9.17 million kg of imported chicken meat to the Philippines, equivalent to a contribution of 2.65 percent of total volume of chicken imports for the period.
The Netherlands reported its first bird flu outbreak in almost a year last month, as the agriculture ministry said around 23,000 chickens at a farm in the central Dutch city of Putten had been culled to contain the outbreak.
The report follows a confirmation by the UK government on Sunday that a strain of the H5N1 bird flu virus had been found in southwest England.
Belgian poultry farmers were told to confine their birds to prevent outbreaks of bird flu, the government announced. Belgium has not seen recent outbreaks of bird flu, but they have been reported in neighbours the Netherlands, Germany and France.
