Lipa City to be next focus of ASF vaccination campaign in Batangas

THE Department of Agriculture (DA) on Monday said that it has expanded its controlled African Swine Fever (ASF) vaccine rollout in Batangas to Lipa City.

Agriculture Assistant Secretary for Poultry and Swine Constante J. Palabrica said that the DA started vaccinating about 300 to 350 hogs at the government-controlled International Training Center on Pig Husbandry in Lipa last week.

“We just vaccinated the grower hogs last Saturday; after 14 days we will check their blood if antibodies have developed,” Mr. Palabrica told reporters.

He said that about 500,000 ASF vaccine doses will be procured this month, while about 150,000 more are awaiting purchase orders.

They started the emergency inoculation of hogs in August in Lobo, Batangas, following a resurgence of ASF in the province. About 10,000 vials were allocated for the exercise, which is expected to be completed by the end of October.

The Food and Drug Administration granted the AVAC ASF Live Vaccine from Vietnam a Certificate of Product Registration for controlled government use, with commercial availability expected to follow.

“Our challenge now is how to conduct the mass vaccination. That’s what we are trying to study,” Mr. Palabrica said.

He added that it takes an average of three weeks to conduct blood testing on hogs before they can be given the ASF vaccine. The development of antibodies against the virus is expected to take a few weeks.

As of Oct. 2, 122 municipalities across 30 provinces had active ASF cases, according to the Bureau of Animal Industry. The first ASF case was detected in 2019.

The provinces with the highest number of active cases were North Cotabato with 131, Quezon 98, Batangas 72, Camarines Sur 43, and La Union 35.

Mr. Palabrica said the DA is also targeting 80% herd immunity against the ASF by inoculating about 5 million hogs in Batangas. — Adrian H. Halili