23 December 2008 First ebola Reston virus detection in pigs — First Reston ebola virus detection in pigs confirmed by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in at a hog farm in Bulacan, Philippines.
23 January 2009 Hog farm worker has ebola Reston virus in possible first pig-to-human transmission.
23 February 2009 According to Sec. Duque of the Dept. of Health, up to 6,000 pigs are to be “Depopulated” at a hog farm in Pandi, Bulacan.
24 February 2009 The DOH has announced “wider” inspections of hog farms in Luzon to check for Reston ebola virus infections or outbreaks.
The DOH also maintains an FAQ Page on Ebola Reston Virus developments.
A Stanford University Honors Thesis on the ebola virus by Tara Waterman seems to be a substantial scientific introduction. There is a wiki on the virus, and general info on Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever, which is NOT — thankfully — associated with Reston ebola virus infections in human beings.
No human being has ever been known to have any illness due to ebola Reston virus, although the kind from Zaire is a different matter altogether.Let’s hope it stays that way and that Gloria Macapagal Arroyo isn’t hiding something else she hasn’t done something about, like some kind of Hot Zone in Bulacan!
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It’s reassuring it’s just reston and not the other kinds.
My sympathy to the owner of the farm in Pandi, must be devastating seeing his 6,000 heads going to waste. I hope he has other business to sustain him.
whatever they do they mustn’t “recycle” those dead pigs, like feeding them to other pigs, even if well cooked. That is the lesson from the Mad Cow Disease disaster in Britain.
You must tell me how much is the government’s counterpart funding, please?
Here is an example of the wide gulf between medical practice and the evolutionary implication of ebola infections.
A PGH doc told me that there is nothing to worry about since the infection has no clinical manifestations.
I replied that that is what is really scary about it. Diseases without clinical manifestations are likely to evolve into something nastier. Would you doctors prepared for that?
So I think medical training should involve courses in evolutionary biology.
The situation could perhaps had been contained earlier if the Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Animal Industry been in ‘activist’ mode:clamping down early on the suspect farms where the first incident of the Ebola Reston Virus had mutated and crossed over to human swine handlers.
But BAI is sadly no longer as well-staffed, having lost talent and sustained funding for its guardian role.
Authorities seemed to sound more in denial when the infections first broke out among pigs in Bulacan.
http://midfield.wordpress.com/2009/01/30/filipinos-and-the-ebola-reston-virus-in-pigs/
With the kind of logic like that, who would really fear for some diseases like STIs?
When Pandi residence starts hemorrhaging then I guess that’s about the time to worry.
‘residents’ pala. damn keyboard.
Ebola coming to the Philippines ? Oh my goodness…such a virus.