Mindanaotoday.com | DA exec: Vaccines needed in fight vs. ASF
By: Franck Dick Rosete
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – The plan of utilizing the vaccines against African Swine Fever (ASF) has been initiated by the Philippine government to deliver a different approach in fighting the continuous threat of the said disease in the country, a high-ranking official from the Department of Agriculture (DA) said recently.
DA Senior Undersecretary Domingo Panganiban noted that the government has been doing the typical measures against ASF for the past years, such as banning the importation, depopulating affected hogs, and compensating the farmers.
To provide a much better intervention, Panganiban said the national government was able to import 600,000 vials of ASF vaccines this year that were currently under testing.
“If they find out that this vaccine is effective, then we shall use it nationally. Hopefully, it will be effective,” Panganiban said in a press conference in this city on March 21, adding that the said number of vials were solely for Luzon for now.
However, once the vaccines are proven effective, the national government, he said, will import 6 million vials, which will be distributed nationwide.
The island of Mindanao would be the last to receive the vaccines once they became effective since Mindanao has the least affected areas of ASF.
Carlene Collado, DA-10 regional executive director, said the hog raisers in Northern Mindanao have not fully recovered from ASF. However, they are now recovering from the losses brought by the disease.
Apart from the repopulation program, the said agency is still providing assistance to the farmers from different barangays for biosecurity measures and daily control, and deploying its surveillance team.
“Up to this time, there are no reports of deaths [from the affected barangays] from ASF-related diseases,” he added.
Collado said in the region, the provinces of Bukidnon and Misamis Occidental, including some towns from Misamis Oriental and Lanao del Norte, are still free from ASF.
According to the latest from DA-10, a total of 197 barangays in the region have already been affected by the ASF—the province of Misamis Oriental being the most affected province with 110 ASF-affected barangays. (MT)
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