BY GLENDA TAYONA and RHENJIE MARIE CALANTAS
ILOILO City – Despite intensified efforts to contain the spread of African Swine Fever (ASF), it has spread to a fifth municipality in Iloilo province.
The latest to record positive cases of ASF was Santa Barbara town in the 2nd District. The first four towns were Oton in the 1st District and San Miguel, Leganes and Alimodian, all in the 2nd District.
Provincial veterinarian, Dr. Darel Tabuada, said that of the six tested samples from Santa Barbara, two were positive for the ASF virus.
The samples were taken from three separate backyard farms on Friday, Nov. 4, and the results came out on Saturday, Nov. 5.
Tabuada said the area within .5-kilometer radius from the ground zero is now considered an infected area or red zone, and it is now being contained or cordoned.
ASF is a highly contagious and deadly swine disease that can affect both farm-raised and feral (wild) pigs. It does not infect people, but it is readily passed from one pig to another by direct contact with bodily fluids from an infected pig, making it destructive to the hog raising industry.
Citing Administrative Order 52 of the Department of Agriculture (DA) on zoning approach for positive cases, the provincial veterinarian said if there are succeeding positive cases outside the .5-kilometer radius containment area, the whole town – which is currently under pink zone – will be automatically classified a red zone.
Depopulation of the infected hogs within the .5-kilometer radius is yet to start as of this writing.
Santa Barbara mayor Dennis Superficial confirmed that the infected farm is located in the town’s Barangay Balabag.
“We are going to implement whatever is mandated to us by the Department of Agriculture,” Superficial said.
The town mayor noted that the hogs in the infected area started to manifest symptoms around Oct. 28 when Severe Tropical Storm “Paeng” also hit Western Visayas.
He added that there were eight hog mortalities logged in Barangay Balabag.
Meantime, like Santa Barbara, Leganes and Alimodian has one barangay each affected by ASF, thus, the two towns could not be declared as red zones yet.
Oton and San Miguel are now marked as red zones after 25 and two of barangays, respectively, have confirmed ASF cases.
So far, over 700 hog heads in Oton, 195 in San Miguel, 80 in Leganes, and 57 in Alimodian have already been depopulated.
Records also showed that ASF has so far affected 83 hog farmers in Oton, nine in San Miguel, five in Leganes, one in Alimodian, and three in Santa Barbara.
In Oct. 16 or two days after the province’s first cases in Oton were confirmed, Gov. Arthur Jr. ordered all local government units (LGUs), including barangays, to activate their respective local ASF taskforces and enforce quarantine / disease prevention and control measures. These included the conduct of ASF surveillance operations and ensure the reporting of the swine raisers/producers and all stakeholders of suspected and probable ASF cases.
Defensor also said rapid testing on hogs will be conducted if necessary.
“Through the barangay local taskforce, kon may nagamalasakit dira nga mga baboy, ma-rapid test,” Defensor said./PN
