African Swine Fever has struck again in The Philippines. A new outbreak was known in Western Pangasinan.
The new ASF outbreak caused live pork prices to rise to over 147 pesos (live weight).
The African Swine Fever was confirmed after blood tests of dead pigs. The ASF outbreaks had been contained for 3 months, but they have just reappeared with virulence.
Over five hundred hogs have been culled in different piggeries of the region.
Quarantine check points have been established to avoid further distribution of the ASF Virus in The Philippines territory, where other regions have already suffered the desease. In the Pangasinan region, twelve municipalities and three cities have already suffered from the ASF plague. The early ASF outbreaks at Pangasinan had been controlled by late March 2020.
However, at the beginning of June 2020, a number of dead pigs were found and tested African Swine Fever Positive after blood tests were conducted.
Currently, there are seventeen municipalities and four cities affected by ASF since the first outbreak in 2019. The Philippines areas affected by African Swine Fever are:
- Mapandan
- Bayambang
- Sual
- Aguilar
- Lingayen
- Binmaley
- Santa Barbara
- Mangaldan
- Asingan
- Bani
- Bolinao
- Anda
In the case of San Javier, they are still conducting tests to confirm whether or not the dead pigs were also infected by ASF.
Pork price rise because of ASF
Everywhere ASF infected the pig herd of a country, the necessary culling of pigs reduces the swine stock and the pork meat production, causing a sharp rise in prices. In the case of China, pork prices are now twice the price of 2018, but reached 3x last year.
In The Philippines, live pork price went up from 120 pesos to 147 peso per live weight kilo. In the case of pork meat cuts, it went up from 220 – 250 pesos per kilo to over 290 pesos.
The Philippines pork meat imports
According to the last USDA pork meat trade report, The Philippines would need to import between 280 and 300 metric tons of pork meat. But the last estimation dates back from April 2020, so this new African Swine Fever outbreak (June 2020) might required for an estimation re assessment, and pushing Philippines into a new record high pork meat import.