The Negros Occidental Provincial African Swine Fever Task Force continues to intensify its measures against the dreaded virus which could affect the province’s P6 billion hog industry.
Provincial Veterinarian Renante Decena, co-chair of the ASF task force, said today, January 21, they “relentlessly enforced the Provincial ASF Prevention Ordinance by continuous enforcement and conduct of checkpoints and inspection of incoming vehicles and refrigerated container vans at the different ports of entry in the province as well as the monitoring of supermarkets, grocery stores, online sellers of frozen meat products” so the province will remain free from ASF.
The serious campaign of keeping the status of Negros Occidental an ASF-free is through the resolute imposition of the governing ordinance to that effect, he said.
The province has already prohibited the entry of pork and live pigs from Luzon, Mindanao, and Eastern Visayas, which reported its first ASF case in the Visayas region recently.
Decena said that part of their measures in disposing of seized pork items was to incinerate or bury them right away to curb the spread of the disease.
“Incinerators were provided by the office in all ports of entry in the province and has incinerated 5,213.28 kilograms of assorted pork products in 2020,” he said.
Last year, the task force confiscated 32.65 tons of assorted pork products worth P5.562 million in ports and checkpoints, he said.
Decena also said that the task force has established round-the-clock checkpoint areas and disinfection stations to eliminate a possible source of the ASF virus.*