DA: Local meat safe
There is no need for the public to worry about the consumption of pork being sold in the local market, the Department of Agriculture (DA) assured yesterday.
In a Palace briefing, Agriculture Secretary William Dar said that the country’s hog industry remains safe even if the yet to be released confirmatory tests on pigs suspected of being afflicted with African swine fever (ASF) should yield positive results.
“No. Even if it’s positive, but much better if it’s negative, we have quarantine and food safety measures in place all over the country,” Dar firmly replied when asked by reporters if consumers should worry about their health in eating pork.
“The public should not be worried because there is a process before the slaughtering. There’s the veterinarian health certificate, once slaughtered there’s the stamp and NMIS (National Meat Inspection Service). If they don’t have this, we will confiscate them all,” he added.
Dar also confirmed that there are five areas presently under quarantine but declined to divulge their exact locations.
“If the suspicion is correct, this will kill the whole industry. That is why we have to be cautious,” he added.
The DA will know by Friday if results of the confirmatory tests are either positive or negative.
It earlier sent tissue samples of hogs that fell ill and died from still undetermined reasons to laboratories abroad to be tested following the increase of hog deaths in different parts of the country the past couple of months.
Meanwhile, the Cebu Provincial African Swine Fever Task Force seized imported Ma Ling canned goods at Pier 1 in Cebu City which were en route to Bohol.
Confiscated were 966 cans of 170-gram and 246 cans of 340-gram Ma Ling products estimated at Php200,000. These were consigned or owned based on documents by AEL Development Corporation, said Port Police Senior Inspector Adolfo Abregana Jr, operations chief of the Cebu Port Authority (CPA).