Davao Occidental in state of calamity over swine fever

GONE Meat vendors at the public market of Malita, Davao Occidental, have stopped selling pork after the provincial government declared a ban on the entry of hogs following the swine deaths caused by African swine fever in nearby Don Marcelino town. —ORLANDO DINOY

MALITA, Davao Occidental, Philippines — The provincial board on Tuesday approved a resolution placing Davao Occidental province under a state of calamity after laboratory tests confirmed the African swine fever (ASF) had caused the death of thousands of pigs in Don Marcelino town.

Samples taken from pigs in Don Marcelino were found positive of the ASF virus, according to the regional animal disease diagnostic laboratory and the Bureau of Animal Industry.

Davao Occidental Gov. Claude Bautista said almost all towns in the province, including Malita, Don Marcelino, Jose Abad Santos and Sta. Maria, already showed signs of the disease in their livestocks.

In Don Marcelino alone, 6,000 of 13,000 hogs had died. The Department of Agriculture offered to give P5,000 for each hog that would be surrendered to the government as Bautista asked for seven days to depopulate the province of hogs to contain the virus.

He also urged hog raisers to have their stocks checked and to surrender them to authorities.

“It‘s better for them to surrender their hogs so that they would get paid because everything would be killed,” Bautista said.

Checkpoints

He stressed the urgency of controlling the ASF outbreak in Davao Occidental. Health authorities set up checkpoints in Sta. Maria and Malita.

In General Santos City, which had been declared ASF-free, authorities started a ban on the entry of hogs in Sarangani province, which shares a common boundary with Davao Occidental.

Sarangani provincial health officer, Dr. Arvin Alejandro, said the ban was agreed upon by Sarangani and General Santos City health and agriculture officials during a meeting on Monday.

“We agreed on a lockdown, which means we will stop the entry of hogs into Sarangani and General Santos even as (agriculture) personnel test hog farms in the province for ASF contamination,”Alejandro said.

The ban also included the entry of hogs from the adjacent town of Malungon, which hosts several hog farms along the boundary of Sarangani and Davao Occidental.

Ban in effect

Alejandro said the ban took effect on Feb. 4 and would last until the provincial agriculture office would have completed its tests.

Checkpoints have been set up in Barangay Banate, Malungon-Gamay in Malungon; Siguel in Alabel and in Glan along Sarangani’s border with Davao Occidental.

“[The ban] is a precautionary measure to ensure that Sarangani is safe and free from ASF,”he said.

Last week, a truck carrying 16 hogs was intercepted at a checkpoint in Barangay Tinagacan in General Santos City, and was immediately sent back to its point of origin in Malita in Davao Occidental.