The Cebu City Department of Veterinary Medicine and Fisheries established border checkpoints in Barangay Sapangdaku after 10 pigs tested positive for African swine fever (ASF) and died.
Authorities suspect the infection may have spread during August and September fiesta visits with neighboring Barangay Toong, while tracing hog raisers within a 500-meter radius of the affected site.
Meanwhile, provincial officials declared the ASF outbreak in Ginatilan contained after all 60 expanded blood samples tested negative, as Governor Pamela Baricuatro maintains a pork entry ban from Negros.
THE veterinary office in Cebu City has tightened border controls in the mountain barangay of Sapangdaku after 10 pigs tested positive for African swine fever (ASF).
The cases were reported after the Provincial Veterinary Office (PVO) declared the outbreak in the southwestern Cebu town of Ginatilan contained.
Jessica Maribojoc, officer-in-charge of the Department of Veterinary Medicine and Fisheries (DVMF), said on Wednesday, Oct. 21, that checkpoints were established after the cases were confirmed. The aim is to keep infected hogs and contaminated pork from leaving the area.
The 10 pigs had already died, while results of additional samples collected on Monday, Oct. 19, were still pending.
Maribojoc said the city was tracing hog raisers within a 500-meter radius of the affected area. Some had already submitted their pigs for testing.
Fiesta link suspected
The City confirmed ASF in Barangay Toong in September, after earlier cases in Barangay Quiot in August. The new infection in Sapangdaku was detected after nearly three months of containment efforts.
Officials suspect pork from neighboring Toong reached Sapangdaku when residents attended each other’s fiestas in August and September.
Maribojoc said the fiesta link remains an assumption, and the source of infection has yet to be established.
Even before the cases, live hogs from Toong required a veterinary clearance confirming negative ASF test results before they could enter Sapangdaku.
Advice to raisers
Maribojoc said the situation was not yet alarming because hog movement had been contained. It would be more concerning, she said, if sudden hog deaths emerged in mountain barangays such as Cambinocot and Lusaran, where backyard hog raising is common.
She urged raisers to report sick or dead pigs immediately, install disinfectant footbaths, change clothes before entering pens and keep feeds covered. A reliable water supply is also needed as super El Niño approaches, she said, since pigs need water to avoid heat stress.
ASF is a highly contagious viral disease that affects pigs and can have a mortality rate of up to 100 percent. It does not infect humans.
The virus can survive on clothing, shoes and vehicles, which is why authorities watch the movement of people as well as animals and pork during outbreaks.
ASF in Ginatilan contained
In Ginatilan, all 60 blood samples taken from pigs in the town’s 12 initially unaffected barangays tested negative, Provincial Veterinarian Mary Rose Vincoy told SunStar Cebu on Tuesday, Oct. 20.
The town first recorded cases in the mountain barangays of Cagsing and Calabawan in September.
The PVO traced the suspected source to residents who brought home uncooked meat from a feast in Negros Oriental. The town continues to require that pig slaughtering go through the local government, with meat inspectors tracing where the animals’ origins.
Entry ban, local supply
To protect Cebu’s hog industry, valued at around P20 billion, Gov. Pamela Baricuatro has banned the entry of live hogs and pork from Negros and other ASF-affected provinces since July. The ban was issued under Executive Order (EO) 39 and later extended under EO 44.
With that industry in mind, the Provincial Government is also considering measures to promote local production of pigs for Cebu’s lechon industry, Vincoy said during the first Provincial Animal Welfare Council meeting on Tuesday.
She said the proposal, which she discussed with Baricuatro, will be part of an executive order the governor is set to sign. She gave no timetable.
“Daghan supply ang baboy sa Cebu (There is a large supply of pigs in Cebu),” Vincoy said.
She added that local production has largely focused on pigs for carcass. Producers could introduce darker-skinned breeds instead of relying solely on white pigs, she said, and feed costs, including imported raw materials, also affect production costs and prices.
In September, Pork Producers Federation of the Philippines vice chairman Rolando Tambago said Cebu still relies on Negros for the smaller native pigs that lechoneros prefer for their crispier skin.
He said traders kept trying to ship hogs from Negros despite the ban, adding that a surplus of larger pigs had pushed farmgate prices down to about P140 per kilogram live weight. / CDF, CAV