PORK BAN EXTENSION. Dr. Darel Tabuada, supervising veterinarian of the Provincial Veterinary Office (PVO), says on Monday (Jan. 6, 2020) that Iloilo is considering an extension of the ban on the entry of hogs and pork products from Luzon and other areas identified by the Department of Agriculture as positive for African swine fever contamination. The ban has been imposed through an executive order signed by Iloilo Governor Arthur Defensor Jr. on October 21, 2019. (PNA photo by Gail Momblan)
ILOILO CITY -- The Iloilo provincial government is considering an extension of the ban on the entry of hogs and pork products from Luzon and other areas identified by the Department of Agriculture (DA) as positive for African swine fever (ASF) contamination.
Iloilo Governor Arthur Defensor Jr. issued an executive order on Oct. 21 last year, which imposed a temporary ban on said products from Rizal and Bulacan provinces in Luzon and countries that are positive for the disease like Latvia, Poland, Romania, Russia, Ukraine, Luxembourg, Belgium, Bulgaria, Moldova, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, South Korea, and China.
Dr. Darel Tabuada, supervising veterinarian at the Provincial Veterinary Office (PVO), said in an interview Monday that the governor is eyeing an extension of the ban, which was in force for a period of 90 days.
Although the province remains to be free of ASF, Tabuada said the veterinary office is requesting for updates from the Department of Agriculture-Bureau of Animal Industry (DA-BAI) to assess the length of the ban extension.
“We are planning to extend our banning of all swine, pork by products coming from Luzon and also from other areas affected by ASF. We will study, together with our governor, on how long the banning would be based on the update from the Department of Agriculture,” Tabuada said.
The extension is meant to protect the swine industry in the province as “there is still no assurance that port and pork products brought here from Luzon are ASF-free,” he said.
Tabuada said the PVO focuses its effort on the entry points to assure that the disease will not enter the province.
There was staff augmentation in the province's airport at the start of 2020, he said.
Likewise, the province has intensified its information dissemination to the public and the hog growers, he added.
Despite the mulled ban extension, the PVO assured that the province would not run out of pork supply.
“We have 200 percent surplus so even if we ban the entry of pork products from Luzon, we will be sustained since we have sources from Cebu and Cagayan,” Tabuada said.
The ASF is a highly contagious hemorrhagic disease affecting swine that is caused by a virus, which cannot be treated or prevented as there is no available vaccine yet. (PNA)
