AKLAN – The African Swine Fever (ASF) continues to spread in Western Visayas, affecting four of the region’s six provinces. The latest is Aklan.
The province’s first confirmed cases were detected in Barangay Arcangel, Balete town, according to Gov. Jose Enrique M. Miraflores in a press conference yesterday.
The Department of Agriculture (DA) Western Visayas’ Regional Animal Diseases and Diagnostic Laboratory (RADDL) conducted convective polymerase chain reaction (cPCR) test for ASF from the samples submitted by the Aklan Provincial Veterinary Office (PVO) from Barangay Arcangel on Tuesday, April 11.
Two samples tested positive for the hog disease.
Balete mayor Dexter M. Calizo issued an executive order temporarily placing the entire town on a “restricted status” to hog traders and livestock transport carriers.
He also ordered the establishment of border control points and biosecurity measures in certain localities and establishments in the municipality.
Calizo said both the provincial and municipal Bantay ASF sa Barangay (BABay ASF) taskforces have recommended to temporarily suspend the movement, shipment and trading of live hogs and all pork products out of Barangay Arcangel to other barangays of Balete as well as to the rest of the municipalities of Aklan.
Under Executive Order No. 06-2023, the barangay biosecurity officers together with the Arcangel barangay council and the Balete Municipal Police Station (MPS) must set up control points and biosecurity measures to monitor, control and manage the entry and exit of hog traders, livestock transport carriers and other concerned individuals thereat so as to ensure that no pork meat products and live hogs get out of the restricted locality.
Also, biosecurity measures were ordered to be set up at the municipal slaughterhouse requiring everyone entering thereon to observe such measure prior to admittance into the establishment.
The technical support teams of the Bantay ASF sa Barangay Program were tasked to closely and regularly coordinate with the Balete MPS, Arcangel barangay council as well as with other barangays in the town for the implementation of the order, in monitoring the concerned locality and in conducting surveillance, census, and information and education campaign to address or prevent the spread of the disease.
On the other hand, DA-6 regional executive director Jose Albert Barrogo recommended to the Aklan provincial government through Miraflores to do the following actions:
* Implement immediate quarantine and disease control measures in the affected premise(s);
* Cull and dispose all remaining hogs properly in the affected areas;
* Conduct disease investigation, especially contract tracing;
* Conduct field surveillance and sample collection in all farms and households with susceptible animal within the one-kilometer quarantine zone form the infected area; and
* Coordinate with concerned local government unit and other agencies/offices for the implementation of the necessary disease control measures in the area of concern as stipulated in the Bureau of Animal Industry guidelines.
The first province in Western Visayas to record ASF cases was Iloilo. Its Oton town logged cases of the hog disease in October last year. The total number of ASF-affected towns in the province now stands at 23.
On Dec 16, 2022, the island-province of Guimaras logged its first ASF case. The hog disease reached the province of Capiz in February this year.
Only the provinces of Antique and Negros Occidental remain ASF-free./PN