Pigs culled due to ASF hit 300,000 mark

MANILA, Philippines — African swine fever (ASF) continues to spread in the country, with culled pigs breaching the 300,000 level even as the government said the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has helped slow the movement of the fatal hog disease.

In its 10th follow-up report to the World Organization for Animal Health released over the weekend, the Philippines said 20 new outbreaks have been recorded and 10,543 additional culled pigs have been added to the list.

This brings the total to 309,387 pigs killed since the outbreak started in August 2019.

As of latest data from the government, there are 4,711 cases of ASF in the country.

Of the new outbreaks, the highest number of killed pigs is in Malasiqui in Pangasinan with 3,018, followed by San Carlos City with 1,933, and Pamplona in Camarines Sur with 1,170.

However, no new province has been added to ASF-affected areas.

New outbreaks were recorded in Tanay and Antipolo City in Rizal, while Botolan in Zambales reported 336 new deaths.

Pangasinan also saw new cases in Calasiao, Alaminos City, Anda and Bolinao.

More cases were reported in Los Baños in Laguna, Pinagbayanan in Quezon, and Sto. Tomas in La Union.

Further up north, Isabela had new cases in Ramon, while Ifugao saw new cases in Banaue and Haliap.

In the Bicol region, Camarines Sur reported new cases in Naga City, San Fernando, Canaman and Gainza.

The Department of Agriculture said P733 million under its quick response fund has been released to indemnify ASF-affected hog raisers.

It also earmarked an initial P400 million to restock hogs and start repopulating the swine industry.

“I want to give focus on that so we immediately mobilized our funds and released P200 million each to Calabarzon and Central Luzon for restocking for hog raising,” Agriculture Secretary William Dar said.

“We will be giving out piglets and our priority are community cooperatives followed by backyard hog raisers,” he said.

The department will also help big commercial farms in terms of providing loan funds with low interest rates as incentive to restocking theswine industry.