Bacolod City has recorded two cases of the dreaded African swine fever (ASF), Mayor Alfredo Benitez said this afternoon, May 26.
Benitez said result of the initial tests conducted on the two pigs that died in Barangay Taculing showed that the swine were confirmed to have the virus.
Taculing punong barangay Lady Gles Pallen also confirmed in radio interviews that the two pigs died of ASF.
Benitez said the samples will still be sent to Manila for RT-PCR, although he said he was told that the result was “99 percent accurate.”
The mayor met with Negros Occidental Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson, Provincial Administrator, Atty. Rayfrando Diaz, and other provincial and city officials during the Joint Animal Biosecurity Incident Management Team Meeting at the Negros Occidental Command Center this afternoon, to discuss contingency measures following the reported ASF in the highly-urbanized city.
“We will intensify testing,” Benitez said, adding he already ordered the culling of pigs within the 500-meter radius of the place in Taculing.
He said the hogs came from neighboring Bago City.
Bago is part of the province’s 4th District, which logged the most number of swine deaths, mainly due to hog cholera, in the past weeks.
Department of Agriculture 6 regional executive director, Jose Albert Barrogo, also confirmed the ASF cases in Bacolod this afternoon.
“What was announced by Mayor Albee was based on the laboratory test we conducted – the result was positive. But the result will still be confirmed by the Bureau of Animal Industry in Manila. The confirmation will be still be on Monday,” he said.
Barrogo said he advised Benitez to activate the local task force and develop a containment plan to prevent the spread of the disease and a recovery plan for the affected hog raisers.
Lacson, meanwhile, said that while there is no official confirmation yet, “we are treating it as if it is ASF. We will be testing, we will be containing, and if sick, we will bury.”/CGC with PNA
