BY DOMINIQUE GABRIEL G. BAÑAGA
BACOLOD City – This city logged two positive cases of African Swine Fever (ASF) after being free from the hog disease for more than three years since its outbreak in the country.
On Friday, May 26, two pigs from a backyard piggery in Barangay Taculing tested positive for ASF, according to Mayor Alfredo Abelardo Benitez.
The city mayor said the samples will undergo confirmatory tests.
“What was announced by Mayor Albee was based on the laboratory test we conducted – the result was positive. But the result will still be confirmed by the Bureau of Animal Industry in Manila. The confirmation will be on Monday (May 29),” added Department of Agriculture (DA) Region 6 executive director Jose Albert Barrogo.
The two pigs, meanwhile, were bought from a commercial swine farm in the neighboring Bago City, Negros Occidental, according to Dr. Martin Torres, Bago City’s veterinary officer, in an interview over Aksyon Radyo-Bacolod on Saturday, May 27.
According to Torres, they believe the ASF-positive pigs may have been infected when it was already in Barangay Taculing, as the commercial farm where they originated had a certificate from DA-6 that it is ASF-free.
The certificate is valid until next month.
Torres said they have stepped up their checkpoints in the city’s entry points and hog shippers are required to present a valid veterinary certificate.
If the hog shipment does not have a veterinary certificate, it is immediately ordered to return to its point of origin.
Blood samples are also being collected from hogs in the city and are sent to the Provincial Animal Diagnostic Laboratory at the Panaad Park in Bacolod for testing.
The previous blood sample test results showed the cause of the hog deaths in the city was hog cholera.
Benitez and Gov. Eugenio Jose Lacson are set to release a joint executive order for ASF, although the latter said so far he has not received any further reports of ASF cases from other areas of Negros Occidental.
Lacson said on Friday the province, which has a P6-billion swine industry, is facing a threat from hog cholera that has already caused the death of almost 6,000 pigs as of last week.
“I would say that hog cholera, it’s a threat. It’s really threatening right now. That’s why we have to be careful,” he said.
The governor cited data on Thursday, May 25, that 5.5 percent of the hog population in Negros Occidental has been affected by swine diseases, mostly hog cholera. (With a report from Philippine News Agency)/PN
