MANILA: The Philippines confirmed on Sunday that African swine fever infections had spread in the south of the country, which accounts for nearly a third of the nation’s 12.8 million pig herd. Additional cases have also been identified in some northern provinces, the Department of Agriculture said. The world’s 10th-largest pork consumer and seventh-biggest pork importer reported its first-ever African swine fever outbreaks in Sept 2019 in some backyard farms near the capital Manila on the northern island of Luzon. On Sunday, the department said 407 pigs had been culled in two villages, with a swine population of 2,398, in Davao City on the southern island of Mindanao. Dar has said pork smuggled from China, where millions of pigs have been culled because of the disease, could be behind the first outbreak in the Philippines.

Source: New Strait Times February 09, 2020 06:56 UTC