Active cases of African swine fever (ASF) in the country have been contained in 19 barangays in nine provinces, the Department of Agriculture (DA) said.
This is a big drop from mid-March when the disease was active in 2,490 barangays and 42 provinces.
Reildrin Morales, Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) director, prices of pork products are now “finding equilibrium.”
In an online briefing yesterday, Morales said ASF positive samples last May dropped to a total of 176 from April’s 520 and March’s 403.
To date, positive cases for June remain at 7.
The DA said current active cases are found in nine barangays in Leyte, two in Northern Samar, another two in Ilocos Norte and one barangay each in the provinces of Abra, Apayao, Mountain Province, Cagayan, Eastern Samar and Davao Occidental.
“Part of those positive samples does not mean that an outbreak occurred. Some of the positive results were from the testing of the environment for those that will be deployed with sentinel pigs. Over 300 local government units (LGUs) have no reported cases ranging from 90 to 180 days and more,” he said.
Morales said some field reports suggest that farm gate price of pork has reached P180 per kilogram in some areas.
“Based on the monitoring of the DA agribusiness and marketing assistance service, as of June 7, fresh local liempo is ranging from P340 to P380 per kg in wet markets while fresh local kasim is at P290 to 350 per kg. Meanwhile, frozen and imported liempo is prevailing at P300 per kg while kasim is ranging from P240 to P260 per kg,” Morales said.
He said BAI continues to capacitate LGUs in training local biosecurity officers as well as in putting up related ordinances to stop the further spread of ASF continue.
