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 Agriculture Secretary William Dar said the highly contagious and
deadly disease was detected in another backyard hog-raising business
in Quezon City in the country's capital.
Dar, who also confirmed African swine fever outbreaks in Pangasinan
province in the northern Philippines, has ordered the culling of
pigs in affected areas.
The incurable disease is wreaking havoc on hog industries in China
and Southeast Asia and could also spell trouble for U.S. grain
exporters supplying animal feeds to virus-hit countries such as
Vietnam, Myanmar and the Philippines.
Dar told reporters hog traders transporting infected pigs were to
blame for the rising number of African swine fever cases in the
Philippines.
"All hog traders, the full force of the law will descend upon you,"
he warned. "There are existing laws to follow and we hope that you
will cooperate."
At least 20,000 pigs have so far been culled or have died because of
the disease in the Philippines since last month, a small fraction of
the nation's swine herd that was estimated at 12.7 million heads as
of July 1.
The Philippines, the world's 10th-largest pork consumer and
seventh-biggest pork importer, declared its first outbreak of the
disease on Sept. 9.
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Agriculture officials suspect the virus was brought to local farms
via food scraps, or swill, from hotels and restaurants fed to pigs,
mixed with contaminated imported pork products.
To protect their hog-raising businesses, several provinces in
central and southern Philippines have imposed a ban on the entry of
pork and pork-based products from the disease-hit areas, including
metropolitan Manila.
"We have now asked the local government units to further strengthen
their checkpoints," Dar said, to make sure undocumented hogs
possibly infected with the virus will not be transported to other
provinces.
Dar, however, said there is still enough pork supply in the domestic
market and that the government is making sure that only pork meat
marked safe to eat by the government's National Meat Inspection
Service is sold to consumers.
Graphic: map of outbreaks if African swine fever, click
https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/
ce/7/6645/6627/ASFMap.png
Graphic: Philippines reports first known outbreak of African swine
fever, click
https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/
ce/7/6327/6309/PhilippinesMeat.png
(Reporting by Enrico dela Cruz; editing by Christian Schmollinger)
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