Contained?

Among the delights of my recent brief visit to Cebu City was sampling its lechon – renowned for being so good eating it with any sauce is considered a mortal sin. The lechon did not disappoint.

Cebu lechon is so famous it has an Instagram-worthy stall at the Mactan-Cebu International Airport, for anyone who still needs a pre-departure cholesterol fix.

Apart from the lechon, there are two other famous pork products in Cebu: chicharon from Carcar, sourced from back fat, and the longganisa shaped like small balls called Chorizo de Cebu.

My longganisa favorites are those from Vigan, Ilocos Sur and Calumpit, Bulacan, with Lucban a close third. But Cebu longganisa is also a popular version.

Pork plays such a significant role not just in Cebuano cuisine but also in its economy, so I can understand why Cebu would ban all pork and live hogs from Luzon. Iloilo, famous for its batchoy, has since followed with a similar ban.

What will happen to the industrial pork buyers in Luzon? Where will Pampanga source its tocino and longganisa? Will lechon be replaced by turkey or jumbo chicken (tastier) this Christmas?

Will we even have holiday ham? The Chinese-style cooked ham of Excelente in Quiapo is prepared many months in advance, but the latest outbreak of African swine fever has been around since last year. ASF is harmless to humans. To ensure food safety, however, health officials stress the importance of fully cooking pork.

Hams are brined and cured, smoked, cooked and glazed on their way to your table. With added nuking of the ham in the microwave before eating, you can worry not about ASF but only the cholesterol and cancer-causing curing salts.

Agriculture experts, however, have warned that even cooked pork, including canned ready-to-eat products, can carry the ASF virus. This is why processed pork products even in cans have been barred entry at Philippine airports and seaports. Individuals who come in contact with such products can spread the virus to pigs.

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The Department of Agriculture says ASF has been “contained.”

Following the developments and listening to experts, however, it looks like we haven’t yet seen the worst of the highly contagious viral disease.

That dumping of dead pig in creeks, for one, looks like a biohazard catastrophe in the making. The contaminated water has been imbibed by animals and possibly used by people for various purposes.

Experts say the virus can live in water for about six months, and up to a year in freezing temperatures. Thanks to the ease of international travel, the virus has circumnavigated the globe like Ferdinand Magellan, wreaking havoc on hog industries. In China alone, some two million pigs have reportedly been “depopulated” or killed to prevent the further spread of the virus.

In the Philippines, about 7,000 hogs have been depopulated so far in areas verified to have been hit by ASF, according to agriculture officials. Both large-scale hog farms and backyard raisers have been hit.

Experts have pointed out that people who come in contact with infected pigs, and even vehicles that transport hogs, including the tires that roll across pig blood or manure, must be thoroughly cleansed using a special disinfectant for such a tenacious virus. I don’t think this is being done especially in backyard pig farms.

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Containment is vital. Mark Dia, global farming director of the World Animal Protection, cites the example of Lithuania, where he says swine containment was done efficiently following an outbreak of ASF.

Dia says carcasses of diseased pigs must be buried about five meters deep, and far enough from waterways in case of leaching into the soil. The carcasses can be placed in leach-proof containers.

As the name of Dia’s 30-year-old NGO implies, the group is concerned about animal welfare, including the methods of killing livestock particularly fowl and swine.

He suggests depopulating infected pigs using gas, which puts the animals to sleep before death. Department of Agriculture (DA) spokesman Noel Reyes, however, told “The Chiefs” on Cignal TV’s One News that the country lacks the facilities needed for mass gassing of swine.

Reyes instead advises hog raisers to contact the DA as soon as there are symptoms of fever in their livestock, for proper diagnosis, containment and, if needed, depopulation and proper disposal.

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Micro-scale breeders, unfortunately, may not be aware of such protocols. Dia raised the possibility that some backyard raisers, upon seeing their pigs ailing and unaware of ASF, could have butchered the animals and sold the parts for meat. If the hogs were suffering from ASF, the virus would have been spread.

About 60 percent of the country’s pork supply comes from backyard breeders, according to the DA.

Dia and other experts have stressed the importance of transparency and widespread information dissemination about ASF. The government has reassured the public that this is being done, amid calls from the US government for transparency in handling the situation. China has been cited as an example of the consequences of the lack of transparency on ASF.

One problem in this area is that while swift detection of ASF is critical for containment, the Philippines has to send samples of infected tissue to the United Kingdom to determine the presence of the virus.

Microbiologist Raul Destura told The Chiefs this week that the Philippines in fact has its own capability to conduct reliable testing for ASF, but the country lacks the international accreditation for its test.

Destura is a believer in Filipino innovation; he and a team of about 10 other scientists and researchers have developed a diagnostic kit for dengue, which can detect the infection within hours at half the prevailing costs.

But without that required accreditation, we still have to rely on the Brits for those tests.

In the meantime, until a vaccine is developed for ASF, it looks like our country, like the rest of the world, will see the situation get worse before it gets better.