Bacolod City and La Libertad town in Negros Oriental province have confirmed cases of African Swine Fever (ASF), prompting intensified biosecurity and border control measures to prevent its further spread, officials said on Wednesday.
Hogs in Barangay Alijis and Barangay Taculing in Bacolod City have tested positive for the virus, city veterinarian Maria Agueda de la Torre announced at a press conference at the Mayor’s Office on Wednesday afternoon.
The positive results were based on blood samples from four pigs submitted for testing to the Department of Agriculture (DA)-Western Visayas’ Regional Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory in Iloilo, she said.
Samples were taken from live pigs in areas where pigs had died, de la Torre said.
Random testing of pigs will be conducted in Bacolod City to determine the extent of the ASF cases, she explained.
Pigs found positive for ASF will be condemned and buried, and the area where they were found will be disinfected, de la Torre added.
She called on barangay residents to immediately report suspected ASF cases in their areas.
Bacolod imports the bulk of its pig supply, de la Torre noted.
Mayor Greg Gasataya has issued Executive Order No. 046, reactivating the ‘Bantay ASF sa Barangay’ program to prevent the spread of ASF in Bacolod.
‘Although ASF has no impact on human health, it has a huge impact on the livelihoods of our brothers and sisters and the meat industry, which is why the city continues to focus on it,’ the mayor said.
The mayor ordered the enforcement of stricter biosecurity measures, including the cleaning and disinfection of farms, equipment and transport vehicles; the mandatory use of footbaths; limiting farm visitors and a 30-day quarantine for newly purchased or returned pigs.
Meanwhile, Negros Oriental Governor Manuel Sagarbarria also confirmed ASF cases in the town of La Libertad on Wednesday, though he did not specify how many pigs were affected.
Blood samples collected from hogs in La Libertad tested positive for ASF, and blood testing of pigs in the municipalities of Sibulan and Amlan is currently underway, he said.
Sagarbarria previously issued an executive order banning the entry of live hogs, pork, and pork by-products from ASF-affected areas.
Executive Order No. 46 strictly prohibits the entry into Negros Oriental of live pigs, pork products, pork by-products, frozen boar semen, and hog transport vehicles originating from or passing through ASF-affected, restricted, or high-risk zones.
Earlier, Gov. Eugenio Jose Lacson also confirmed the resurgence of ASF in Negros Occidental, particularly in the southern part of the province.
Negros Occidental’s pig population had already recovered from the ASF outbreak that hit last year, but unfortunately, ASF has resurfaced, he said.
‘So we have to go back to the same [biosecurity measures]. We will have to start from scratch,’ he said.
‘We will have to disinfect our areas and go slow on repopulation,’ Lacson added.
He noted that after ASF hit last year, the pig industry had recovered and hog production was almost back to its original level.
However, a total of 1,902 pigs have died from various diseases across 12 localities in Negros Occidental as of June 25, provincial veterinarian Placeda Lemana said on Tuesday.
These mortalities represent 3.27 percent of the total hog population in the affected areas.
Lemana noted that authorities cannot definitively attribute all the deaths to ASF since many of the hogs were not tested.
However, clinical signs and symptoms exhibited by the dead pigs closely resembled both ASF and hog cholera, she said.