In the Philippines, African swine fever threatens a national culinary obsession

Filipinos have had a centuries-long love affair with pork, devouring all parts of the pig from the trotters to the skin, and this runaway consumption has made the country a pork power in the global market

But the industry is now under threat from African swine fever, with many diners refusing to eat it, despite authorities assuring Filipinos the meat is still safe

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The Philippines produces almost 2.3 million metric tonnes of pork. Photo: AFP

Published: 8:00am, 17 Sep 2019Updated: 9:33pm, 17 Sep 2019

When residents in northeast Manila last week found dozens of dead pigs floating on the Marikina River, officials knew what it meant – African swine fever (ASF) had arrived.

The carcasses were almost certainly those of pigs infected and killed by the virus and then dumped from upstream piggeries or washed by heavy rains into the river from shallow burial pits.

Veterinary officials later buried most of the retrieved carcasses deep underground, keeping a few for testing.

African swine fever, frequently mistakenly called African swine flu, started threatening the country as early as last year when the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) noted a global spread in the disease after it started in China.

On Monday, Ronnie Domingo, the Bureau of Animal Industry’s director, said the spread of ASF in the Philippines had now reached the level of an outbreak.

The virus affects only pigs – humans are immune. But that is possibly the only good thing about it. There is no vaccine and mortality approaches 100 per cent. It spreads easily, through contaminated material fed to pigs, as well as ticks and any other objects likely to carry infection, such as clothes, utensils and furniture. Pigs afflicted by the haemorrhagic disease become listless, suffer high fever, lose their appetite, bleed internally and die within two to 10 days of infection.