Dr. Jean Marc Olive, WHO representative, said Sagada’s practice of "ikik" or catching of migratory birds through nets should be stopped if residents do not want to contract bird flu or avian influenza.

Ikik, which is usually done on top of Mt. Ampacao overlooking the "poblacion" or town center, starts from September to early January.

“They should not eat the birds or keep them as pets,” Olive said. He said, however, the Philippines still has no case of bird flu, which has already killed three people in Vietnam.

A lethal strain of the virus is widely thought to have come from wild ducks and migratory birds.

‘Meningo’ stalks Sagada
http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2005/jan/10/yehey/top_stories/20050110top1.html
Restive residents  rush for medicines

By Laarni Ilagan, Correspondent, Northern Luzon Bureau 

Residents in the resort town of Sagada in Mountain Province, agitated by the reports of deaths ascribed to meningococcemia, are cla­moring for antibiotics from health officials as fears of the disease continued to spread through highland villages.

Some people in Sagada were said to be on the verge of panic after the death of two children suspected to have contracted the disease over the weekend.

A 10-month-old boy died in Sagada Saturday and another child reportedly died at the Bontoc General Hospital Sunday.

Another child, an 8-year-old, was taken to the hospital and slipped into a coma Sunday, health officials said.

Sources from Sagada said the town officials decided to dip into the municipal calamity fund to battle meningococcemia and are considering the declaration of a state of calamity.

Mayor Robert Baaten of Sagada met with Sangguniang Bayan members, other municipal officials and church representatives to map out a plan.

Some cases appear to have contracted the bacteria from a common source, although health authorities were still tracing possible contacts. The 8-year-old’s family had gone to a fiesta for the New Year to the same barangay where the 10-month-old lived.

The sister of the infant also exhibited meningococcemia-like symptoms and placed under observation at the Luis Hora Hospital in Bauko, Mountain Province.

The Sagada municipal health officer, Dr. Evelyn Capuyan, said in a phone interview with The Manila Times the 8-year-old “is stuporous, comatose and feverish. She started not been responding since yesterday.”

Health officials distributed antibiotics in the Sagada barangay, but Capuyan said the supply of the medicines was running low.

She said health officials had to buy the antibiotics from the church-run Saint Theodore’s Hospital.

Capuyan said the people were close to panicking and were demanding for medicines. “We do understand their fear but we can’t give also full assurance they’ll not get affected. We can only try to calm them down and advised them to wear masks when they go to public places, and to boost their immune system by living a healthy lifestyle and eating healthy foods more vitamin C. That’s the only thing we could do right now,” she said.

With the concern over meningococcemia growing, Rep. Rodolfo Albano 3rd of Isabela has proposed an early detection system for highly contagious diseases including severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and encephalitis.

Albano noted that the establishment and financing of a system to address the outbreak of contagious illnesses is best since the government cannot afford to use reactionary measures once a disease had already broken out.

“The government cannot just make plans on how to fight killer diseases only after these had killed a number of people. There should be an institutionalized system and budget appropriation to enable the government to immediately contain the spread of such diseases,” Albano said.

The government must also empower the country’s medical professionals to raise the alarm on contagious diseases if the need arises, he said.

“Our health workers’ awareness should be high so as to prevent panic and the spread of deadly transmittable diseases like meningococcemia, which by the way is an old disease,” he said.

Albano said the bill to be approved by Congress should include a mandatory quarantine program and identify government facilities where possible carriers of the fatal disease should be quarantined for a certain period of time.

He also said the government must also be given the power to implement preventive measures such as sealing of private and public areas including hospitals, dwelling, commercial buildings, clinics, resorts, malls, recreation areas and other enclosed public places.

Albano said the government must also look at how China dealt with SARS outbreak and the steps it took in preventing the recurrence of the disease during the latter part of 2004.
--With Cheryl M. Arcibal

Another interesting article about the meningo command post set up in Baguio. It doesn´t sound like they consider this a common situation:

http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2005/jan/07/yehey/top_stories/20050107top3.html

Dayrit said the command post would be manned by 15 epidemiologists and communications experts from the DOH and the Baguio health department. It would be set up at the city health office.

“There will be four posts. The first and second posts will work on the data analysis, screening, epidemiological investigation and contact tracing. The third and fourth will work in the field, giving prophylaxis to affected communities, specifically in the markets,” Dayrit said.

[...]

Dayrit said there is a need to be cautious because “the person-to-person transmission is still happening and we’re still finding cases.”

He stressed the need to set up a laboratory in Baguio because some of the deaths attributed to meningococcemia may have been a case of misdiagnosis.


The fact that the WHO has now apparently joined this effort, as well as warning about bird flu in the area as Henry pointed out, is extremely interesting. Presumably the WHO folks have access to H5N1 tests, and have (or will have soon) performed bird flu tests on suspected cases. It´s not a huge leap to guess that they´ve already detected it, and thus the warning.

To any WHO people reading this: Keep in mind, if this is bird flu and you don´t let people know, they will fry you for withholding the information. Preventing a panic is secondary to the free flow of (substantiated) information.