BACOLOD City – The city government here has activated a taskforce to prevent the dreaded African swine fever (ASF) from entering the metro.
Mayor Evelio Leonardia issued an Executive Order (EO) No. 27 last week creating the “Task Force ASF” that will be in the forefront of safeguarding the local swine industry.
Leonardia chairs the task force, which includes quick response, quarantine, surveillance, information, education and communication, and legal teams. City Agriculture officer Atty. Goldwyn Nifras has been named as vice-chairperson.
“This is to effectively address and devise measures to ensure the city against ASF,” the mayor said.
The Task Force ASF, according to Leornardia, has focused on disseminating information to all industry stakeholders, from the huge livestock growers down to the backyard hog raisers.
They will also formulate a contingency plan for a tighter prevention and control measures to ward off the deadly pig disease.
He added that there is a need to tighten preventive measures to protect the hog industry and to prevent a possible economic loss should the ASF breaches the city.
The Department of Agriculture (DA) recently announced that the blood sample from incident reports of the suspected swine disease from Rizal province sent for confirmatory Polymerase Chain Reaction tests has tested positive for ASF.
ASF is a highly contagious hemorrhagic viral disease of domestic and wild pigs that can easily spread from one farm to another if not properly managed, thereby causing economic and production losses.
The provincial government of Negros Occidental has created its own ASF task force to conduct a province-wide monitoring to prevent entry of ASF in various points of entries./PN
