Imagine your favorite food on a stick? the barbeque! Those succulent pork cooked over charcoal and full of greasy fat.  How about the pork adobo? The smell of vinegar and soy sauce cooked to perfection. Anyways, there was an Ebola scare in metro manila that a pig worker in one of the two quarantined farms in Bulacan and Pangasinan has been tested positive for antibodies of the Ebola Reston virus.

Health Secretary Francisco Duque III dropped by the Pritil public market in Tondo, Manila the other day to assure buyers that it was still safe to eat pork as long as the meat had been properly handled and thoroughly cooked before it is served.

Duque immediately played down implications of the first pig-to-human transmission of the virus. He said the pig handler, who was not identified, had been infected more than six months ago but remains healthy, claiming he has had no serious illness in the past 12 months.

The Department of Agriculture, meanwhile, has advised the public to buy its meat only from National Meat Inspection Services (NMIS)-certified sources to ensure that the pork came from healthy pigs.

A team of international health experts arrived in the country earlier this month to work with local experts to contain the spread of the particular strain of Ebola virus found in some dead pigs.

It was the first time the Ebola Reston virus had been detected in pigs, although the specific Ebola strain had been found before in monkeys in the country.

Ebola virus can be trasmitted through contact with the blood or other bodily fluids of an infected animal or person.
The Ebola Reston virus is reportedly a milder strain unlike the Zaïre, Sudan and Bundibugyo strains associated with the deadly Ebola hemorrhagic fever outbreaks in Africa.

source: inquirer