80% of swine fever deaths occurred in Philippines

MANILA: African swine fever has spread to Metro Manila from adjoining Rizal and Bulacan, provinces that the government earlier acknowledged as among the areas hit by the disease that is fatal to hogs but harmless to humans.

The Quezon City government has culled 146 pigs at Barangay Bagong Silangan since Sunday after 11 hogs in the area tested positive for the African swine fever virus, Mayor Joy Belmonte said on Wednesday.

The culling of the animals came as the World Organisation for Animal Health, or OIE, reported that about 8,000 hogs died in the Philippines from Aug 30 to Sept 12.

This figure accounted for the bulk of the 8,200 hogs lost in all of Asia and the 10,000 lost worldwide during the two-week period, said OIE in its latest fortnightly update on the global monitoring of the disease.

In yet another measure taken by a local government, Mati City in Davao Oriental has banned the entry of fresh and processed pork unless these are transported via refrigerated delivery trucks.

Mati adopted the measure despite the appeal on Monday of Agriculture Secretary William Dar to local governments to await guidelines from his department on how to deal with the disease and not unduly impose bans on the entry of pork and pork products in their respective localities.

In a statement, Belmonte said affected backyard raisers would be paid 3,000 pesos (RM241) and 1,500 pesos (RM120) for every slaughtered pig and piglet, respectively, as compensation even if the animals were from illegally operated pens.