Mayor questions DA request to conduct random hogs blood sampling

BAGO CITY Mayor Nicholas Yulo questioned Tuesday, May 30, the request of the Department of Agriculture-6 to conduct a random hog blood sampling in the city because it’s “a duplication of what the province is doing.”

He asked, “Do they mean they don’t trust the province that is also submitting blood samples to them?”

“We are waiting for a letter-request from the DA to conduct a random blood sampling of hog farms in the city,” Yulo said, as he stressed that they are dependent on the findings of the provincial government and the DA.

Yulo stood firm that there is still no case of African swine fever (ASF) in his locality.

“The city continues to get samples and the results show that what we have is hog cholera,” Yulo said.

“We don’t believe that the ASF virus comes from Bago City,” Yulo said, citing the findings of its City Veterinary Office that the pigs bought from one of the piggeries in the city was still “healthy.”

“If it was infected, it would have died already but it was still alive for two weeks in Bacolod,” he pointed out.

It may have been a Bacolod virus, he stressed.

“Since we don’t have any local laboratories, we stand by the results of the blood samples,” Yulo added.

He said that the city government is strengthening its biosecurity measures.

The city government has also put up border controls for three weeks already, he said.

“We don’t allow the entry of hogs and pork products from infected areas to non-infected areas,” he said.

Slaughtering of hogs in infected areas should be in the presence of para-vets, he said.*