ASF lessons for COVID-19

Believe it or not, some of us backyard hog raisers learned a lot of lessons from the African Swine Fever or ASF epidemic that can somehow help in containing or dealing with COVID-19 at home or the work place.

Both virus epidemics started out as unknown and the first lesson many of us hog raisers learned quickly was to learn as much as we could about dreaded diseases. Thanks to the continuing announcements of the Department of Health and Secretary Francisco Duque, more and more people are consulting with Dr. Google and the Facebook Community to get more information and updates about COVID-19. Filipinos will soon learn the second lesson we hog raisers learned, if you want the right information go to the official, qualified source of information; for ASF we went to the Veterinarians  and major corporations involved in hog raising – for COVID-19 consult a physician, or check the DOH website. You will not get a sense of reassurance or comfort if you rely mostly on Facebook posts and “News Bulletins” on-line because the ratio of bad news versus pure cold facts or data is extremely imbalanced. There are simply far too many media outlets and governments making alarming announcements than objective experts telling the public what they need to know about COVID-19 and how to deal with it.

Consider what has happened with the ASF epidemic. At the start, there was deluge of alarming reports, most of the pictures and videos coming out were about thousands of pigs dying or being culled. To this day, most media outlets are still using the same old material in spite of the fact that they are from last year or from a foreign country. So just be careful and pay attnetion to the dates/ timeline of the news or bulletins because just like many posts of American Idol or The Voice you might actually be watching something from two years ago!

Sadly even after all the experts talk, people will pick and choose the information they want but keep their opinions or positions on the matter. In spite of expert assurances from veterinarians and medical practitioners that if you accidentally ate ASF contaminated pork, it won’t affect you in any way, people still choose not to buy pork just like the people who continue to raid every store they can to hoard face masks even if health experts tell them it doesn’t help. In the end, the government will simply have to do what the Australian authorities had to do to stop the hoarding of toilet paper; they placed a quota of 2 or was it 4 rolls per shopper. The lesson here for you is that you should learn to go to the experts, listen to the experts and STOP trying to be the expert!

The biggest lesson we hog raisers learned about fighting a viral epidemic is keep your place clean, make sure visitors go through basic preventive protocols, and limit the entry and movement of outsiders as well as yourself when entering farms. Before ASF, raisers simply concerned themselves with washing down pig pens. But once farmers realized that the virus travels with humans or contaminated swill or kanin baboy, we all learned the word “Containment”. First and foremost, backyard raisers immediately put up special gates and foot baths that would force visitors to walk through a narrow passage way while your shoes get mildly soaked in disinfectants. Truth be told, I knew all about foot baths from my teenage years in sabong and knew it is the first line of defense against serious diseases in animals but like most folks you just get lazy or take it for granted. But after thousands of hogs got annihilated by ASF, I built foot baths at every entry point into my backyard farm and I now use both PROTECT PLUS and PROTECT PLUS GOLD to soak or do weekly disinfection of the premises. Aside from the foot bath we also have spray bottles with PPG for hand sanitation.

If you’re a netizen or Facebook regular, chances are you’ve watched programs or read up posts about handbags and shopping bags being the top carrier of of germs, bacteria and even the (cold) virus etc. One US news program even sent out swabs to a laboratory and the results were shocking. Then there’s those posts that talks about leaving your shoes outside the door, down the stairs or in the garage and never bringing shoes into your bedroom. Clearly it’s a no brainer nowadays, but under the present circumstances my next project after writing this column will be to build a foot bath in front of my house. I’ve already asked the neighborhood handyman to recondition my good old power wash and you can bet that it will be put to good use in and around our flat. Why? I’ll tell you why; notice that garbage truck that regularly goes through your street, the hundreds of vehicles and people that walk to and through or drive by. The power washer can be used as a power mister just like they use in backyard farms, just like they do in China and other countries nowadays.

In closing I would like to appeal to President Duterte, Secretary Año, Secretary Villar and Chairman Danny Lim even residents of Metro Manila too please initiate a Metro Manila-wide wash down. Many of our streets, overpasses, posts and columns as well as sidewalks are downright grimy, dusty or plain dirty. The one thing that ASF and COVID-19 has in common is that it teaches us and forces us to start getting clean not just inside but also outside our premises. In fact all our major disease outbreaks is also related to the dirty surroundings. If you own a house or an office building PLEASE join the clean-up. Stay safe and God Bless You All.

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