Daily pig deaths from various diseases in Negros Occidental remained at a single digit for a third day on Thursday, August 3.
There were two deaths reported in Kabankalan City and three in Cauayan on Thursday, Provincial Administrator Rayfrando Diaz said.
The Provincial Animal Biosecurity Incident Management Team (PABIMT) is continuing to implement measures to keep the pig deaths down, he said.
There are now 1,593 pig houses in affected local government units that have been decontaminated and readied for re-population as soon as practicable, Diaz said.
This is subject to laboratory RT-PCR testing to finally determine if there are still Hog Cholera or African swine fever viruses in affected areas, he said.
Negros Occidental Gov. Eugenio Jose Lacson said as long as they can source additional funds, more amounts will be allocated to help affected pig raisers.
He said the daily pig deaths have dropped from three digits to a single digit because of biosecurity measures implemented by the provincial government.
“I’m not saying it’s over but the protocols that are being followed are helping reduce the mortalities,” he said.
A few pigs will have to be released in certain areas to find out if it is safe before full repopulation can take place, Lacson said.
There have been 17,771 pig deaths in Negros Occidental causing losses of P199 million, PABIMT reported on Thursday.
This has affected 4,264 pig raisers, it added.*