GenSan ASF-free – city vet

GENERAL Santos City has no more cases of African swine fever (ASF) infection, a veterinary official said on Thursday, August 4.

Dr. Emilio Gargaran Jr., acting chief of the City Veterinary Office (CVO), said the last infected hog in the village of Baluan had been culled and monitoring found no single case of ASF.

Earlier, General Santos Mayor Lorelie Geronimo Pacquiao issued an executive order for strict border controls to prevent and control the spread of ASF in the city.

The CVO culled at least 77 hogs in Baluan as a preventive measure to prevent further infections among local hogs and spare hog raisers from further losses.

Aside from preemptive depopulation, Gargaran said, a mobile disinfection truck, donated by the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI), is being used in cleaning and disinfecting the area.

He added that teams from the CVO and BAI have been deployed to several barangay (villages) to conduct continuous surveillance activities.

“It is worthy to note that Baluan and two nearby barangay that we placed under close surveillance are now free of ASF as no new infections have been detected,” Gargaran said.

He added that the city government is continuously reminding hog raisers to strictly implement and improve their biosecurity measures to protect their farms from diseases.

The CVO reminded the public about the urgency in reporting abnormalities in their pigs, as this is also key to preventing ASF from spreading to other farms.

“Cooperation and accountability to the community are important concepts among all stakeholders to preserve the city’s hog industry,” Gargaran said.

Meanwhile, about 100 hogs were culled in Norala town, South Cotabato province, to guard against ASF.

Norala Mayor Clemente Fedoc said the local government unit (LGU) and personnel from the provincial veterinary office have depopulated at least 100 hogs in ASF-infected Poblacion village in the town since July 29.

“The ASF was first detected on a sick pig of a backyard hog raiser showing signs of the virus,” Fedoc also said.

According to the mayor, the depopulation of live hogs covered areas that are within the 500-meter radius of the ASF ground zero.

“Starting today (Tuesday, August 2), we will also conduct surveillance on pigs outside the 500-meter radius zone,” Fedoc said.

Since the LGU is still in the process of validation, Fedoc said he is not yet certain about the number of ASF-affected hog raisers.

Being a third-class municipality, Norala is not prepared and does not have enough funds for ASF-affected farmers, he added.

“I will meet with the municipal council and our budget officer and find ways where we can source funds to assist the affected hog raisers,” Fedoc said.

He added that they are still investigating how the ASF virus was transmitted at the town’s center.

“We have established checkpoints on possible entries to prevent the entry of ASF but maybe transporters of live hogs are using alternative routes like roadways on irrigation canals,” he said.

Norala is the latest municipality in South Cotabato to have been hit by ASF after the towns of Banga and Surallah and this city.