Ebola outbreak in RP Hogs

Now it can be blogged about.

A few months back as I was doing my fieldwork in Bangkok, Thailand, colleagues relayed to me a news about an animal disease outbreak in the Philippines. As much as I’m used to hearing zoonotic diseases, this one made me to worry a bit for my relatives back home as it involved the dreaded ebola virus, which causes the deadly ebola haemmorhagic fever.

‘Fortunately,’ the ebola outbreak among hogs in the Philippines was caused by the low pathogenic ebola reston strain, which does not affect humans. When it was first detected in the US in 1989, it fatally affected monkeys. The suspected monkeys that introduced the virus came from the Philippines. The ebola reston outbreaks were reported in the Philippines between 1989 and 1990.

A subsequent outbreak in 1996 was again traced to monkeys imported from the Philippines. These outbreaks prompted studies as to the zoonotic nature of the strain, which was later disproved.

In the current outbreak, details are sketchy but the possible scenario is this: Philippine laboratories detected the strain in pigs and submitted it to a US laboratory for confirmation.

It took a while for Philippine animal health authorities to release the news although it is certain that investigations were continuing after the outbreak was confirmed and strict biosecurity measures in the farms and province reportedly affected were properly imposed.

The Philippine government recently confirmed the ebola outbreak among hogs almost a little more than a month after it was detected. It immediately stopped pig meat exports “as a precautionary measure.” Philippine authorities assured the public that the ebola virus in pigs was not fatal to humans. The Philippine animal and public health authorities again urged the public to buy only government certified meat. Further tests in other farms showed negative results confirming that the ebola outbreak among hogs was an isolated incident.

Philippine Agriculture officials assured affected farmers of aid and claimed that it will seek international assistance to finally investigate the reservoir of the virus in the country. It has invited international animal health experts and veterinarians to investigate. A Bloomberg report said that international health experts are positive about the recent hog ebola outbreaks will finally lead scientists “to ‘elusive reservoir’ of virus.”

Disclaimer: Jim used to work for the Philippine Bureau of Animal Industry and the Food and Agriculture Organization (Philippines and Bangkok)

WordPress without Automattic

Worpress bloggers are very blessed indeed.

For those who has been with WordPress for a long time, you might never realise how lucky you are. Some of you might overlook the wonders of Automattic but you’ll know how it feels when you blog without it. Recently, I was excited when Friendster introduced Friendster Blog 2.0 and yes the platform is in WordPress! Blogging at Friendster has never been the same again after this, or so I thought.

I was almost regularly blogging when I an incremental increase in spam comments. To worsen the situation, I had to manually delete spam comments. It seems that Friendster has only downloaded WordPress but it lacked one or two plug-ins including the ever important spam filter-automattic or akismet.

So, I guess I might have to wait and see the further improvement of Friendster’s services. It is a free service, but ei, wordpress blogging is free and we get great ‘pay forward’ services! (and its stakeholders reap the results in return).

RP Police claims that suspects went berserk

The Philippine National Police is in hot water after a ‘dramatic’ shootout, as an MSNBC report described it, with robbery suspects in Manila. The news about the shootout was also picked up by CNN and Al-Jazeera. Media reports said that the PNP Chief has apologized for the civilian deaths and blamed the robbers for the ‘collateral damage.’ The Police, however, is also insisting that they made no mistake in killing one of the alleged suspects, a certain Ronaldo Eusebio, despite proof that he is a legitimate employee of a toll company and testimony from the “suspect’s” wife.

Pinoys in Oz Can Renew Passport by Post

Filipinos in Australia can now apply for renewal of their passports by post. The move came after a number of complaints from Filipinos outside the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) who were required to apply in person to renew their passports. The Embassy required personal appearance for every passport renewal applicant because of “the need to incorporate biometrics in the passport and due to the highly technical specifications” of the new machine readable Philippine passports. Filipinos who wanted to renew their passports spend between Aus$200 and Aus$1,200 to travel to Canberra because of this initial guideline from the Philippine Embassy in Canberra.

The Philippine Embassy in Canberra claimed in its website that “soon became obvious that the requirement for personal appearance when filing applications can be an expensive and time-consuming process for our kababayans.” It announced that it ‘sought’ the approval of the Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila to “allow for personal appearance at Philippine Honorary Consulates/Consulates General in state capitals.” 

Filipinos meaning to renew their passports will now have to spend between Aus$95 and Aus$200.

Given these facts, one will wonder whatever happened to the need to incorporate biometrics in the passport and due to the highly technical specifications. If they can authorize the personal application at the state capital’s Philippine Honrary Consulates/Consulate Generals, why not authorize the whole process of applying for passport renewal in the Philippine Honorary Consulates/Consulates General?

I’m also wondering how the pricing of services differs from one Philippine Embassy to another. If you renew your passport in Thailand, you would have to pay between THB2,250 (PhP3,063.52) and THB2,700 (PhP3,676.10). Here in Australia you are poised to pay between Aus$65 (PhP2,065.76) and Aus$78 (PhP2,479.02). If you renew your passport in the Philippines, you will have to pay between PhP 500 and PhP 700. Mailing the application back to Manila is not that expensive but I guess with the quality of postal staff we have back home, paying extra is inevitable.

WA Police Needs Security?

After two firebomb attacks in two separate police stations, State Police authorities are considering placing security guards in police stations here in Western Australia. The first firebomb attack made at the Joondalup Police Station and the most recent one was at the Warwick Police Station. Police are still investigating whether the two attacks are related and have yet to identify a suspect.

I guess using security guards, when you have the money, is logical. It also saves the effort of police to think about other things than crime fighting (and busting drunk drivers). In the Philippines, such scenario is far flung. Police in the Philippines also double as security guards for the station (and for some politicians, too!).

Long time…

Well, I was travelling these past few weeks. I also found a good reason for not updating this blog along with so many other accounts I maintain online–I was in a country with limited internet connection. 😀 There were many developments around the world from what seems to be a movie inspired one–a black (well, half-black in this case) US president elected to the world’s remembrance of the ‘war to end all wars.’

Here are some events that some of you might have overlooked–The international community finally took notice of the carnage in DR Congo. The Philippine Daily Inquirer hopes that Pinoy politicians learn a thing or two from the recent US election. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is in trouble for a media leak of his private phone conversation with US President Bush where the latter reportedly asked him ‘what is the G-20?’. Howie’s article on Filipino racism stirred some emotions and fiery debates while Doronila took offense to Obama’s ‘snub’ that Malacañan tried to play down. The WP-Pinoy website is currently down (not sure why) and the last of the original Hi-5 member finally quits.

Quick wrap for the past two weeks, not comprehensive but I thought you might want to know about these. 🙂

Poverty is real everywhere

Change is said to be the only thing permanent in the world, however, poverty might as well qualify as another thing becoming permanent in the world, unless we do something about it. There have been many debates as to how to eradicate poverty and it has become a worldwide concern that the UN top it on the list of its priority for its millennium development goals.

Behind the world’s greatest bailout

Just when you thought everybody meant well in this time of the world credit crisis, here comes the ‘sad’ truth behind the much touted US bailout of the failing big US companies–the ‘sweeteners’ were insertions that benefit each senator’s constituents.

A Philippine Daily Inquirer editorial yesterday pointed out that the ‘insertions’ in the bailout bill showed that US lawmakers effectively used a global issue to “prove that all politics is local.” In contrast, while the US lawmakers may make an advantage out of any political issue in the house to benefit their stay in the August Hall, Filipino lawmakers are definitely out to make everything happen for a law to be passed–as long as it will benefit them, personally, in the long run. The PDI explained in its editorial:

Instead of insertions in the budget to pander to the businesses and industries of their constituents, our legislators have shown themselves inclined to make insertions along two broad lines. First, for specific infrastructure projects which may redound to their benefit not necessarily in the form of kickbacks, but certainly in the form of real estate improvements. Second, to provide for broad slush funds (lump sums for vaguely-defined purposes) the release of which still require the legislators’ pandering to whoever is chief executive.

In the recent WA election, I saw, in a gist, how most politicians would decide on their affiliation–they almost act like their US counterparts–they put their constituent’s benefit first (well, there’s an ulterior motive to stay in politics probably but it’s the voting public that wins big time). Now, with how lawmakers in the Philippines, is it a cultural thing unique in Southeast Asia or is it ‘only in the Philippines’???

Egos and Evaluation

There are people who are very proficient in what they do that some of them could easily wield the pen (or keyboard in our case) and use it as effective as punching another human being (that they get a number of lawsuits). Well, sadly most of the time, with prolific writers and good journalists (both broadcast [new media and traditional] and print) ego is a bad ‘better half’ of ‘being good.’

A good example of the marriage between ‘good’ and ego is exhibited in this video:

I recalled Lenggai and her post about post-mortem meetings when they hold evaluation meetings in the broadcast industry. Now, I guess in situations such as this one, they might never sit down in a meeting. 😀

Global Warming Refugee

In what could be the first of a series of trends, Tuvalu recently ‘floated’ the idea of mass migration to Australia. This was after the effects of global warming is becoming a reality in the tiny Pacific island nation, which is one of the world’s lowest lying nations.