By Dominique Gabriel G. Bañaga

Amid the reported lowering of African swine fever (ASF) cases in neighboring Iloilo province, the ASF Task Force in Negros Occidental will remain on guard for the entry of pork and pork byproducts in the province.

Dr. Placeda Lemana, acting head of the Provincial Veterinary Office, said yesterday that even if ASF cases go up or down in Iloilo, their work will be the same.

“The ASF virus is not easily eliminated in an area,” Lemana said.

Lemana also said that it is only the Regional Surveillance Unit of the Department of Agriculture that can declare an area ASF-free or cases are going down.

She said that they will intensify their surveillance in groceries and markets around the city.

“We will pull out any items deemed prohibited under our provincial ordinance. We will order it to be shipped back from its source or dispose of it through burying or burning it,” she said.

Meanwhile, ASF cases in Oton — the first municipality in Iloilo to record cases of hog disease — are already declining, its Vice Mayor Jose Neil Olivares said on Monday, November 21.

Olivares said that of the town’s 37 barangays, only 28 have remaining ASF cases and an estimated 9,000 swine are not contaminated.

Over 1,700 hogs have been depopulated or have died of natural causes in the area./DGB, WDJ