The Hog Cholera Menace
The recent hog cholera outbreak in the country rocked the agribusiness world. How serious was the damage? Has the issue been put to rest?
On July 27, 2007, the national dailies reported the spread of the hog cholera outbreak and other diseases that have hit some pig farms in the provinces of Bulacan and Pampanga. From backyard farms in three towns, news papers reported that the outbreak, also known as the classical swine fever, expanded to 43 barangays in 12 municipalities in Bulacan. Provincial veterinarian Felipe Bartolome said the outbreak only affected about 3,000 to 5,000 sows.
Immediately, the Department of Agriculture (DA) issued a memorandum containing quarantine policies to prevent the transportation and movement of breeder hogs and those intended for slaughterhouses without the necessary permits. On that same day, the national Meat Inspection Services (NMIS) raised a hog cholera “red alert” warning over Metro Manila and five regions of Luzon.
Six days later, on August 2, Manila Times’ Jefferson Antiporda reported that the Quezon City government confiscated five tonsor about 5,00o kilos of suspected “double-dead” or “tainted” meats during surprise inspection made by the city’s health department in Balintawak market. Double-dead meats, the report said, are the flesh of animals that have died of diseases and then slaughtered, quartered and butchered for sale.
This chain of events sent many consumers in a state of frenzy, especially in Metro Manila. Compounding the issue is that some quarters in the agribusiness community, especially the veterinarians, refuse to talk. Despite reassurances from DA officials that the outbreak won’t affect pork prices and that the disease has been contained, Luzon commercial and backyard pig raisers feared that their respective businesses would be affected especially with the information that there is no cure for hog cholera.
We recently interviewed Dr. Rosemarie Antegro, Chairman of the National Hog Cholera Control and Eradication Program and head of the Bureau of Animal Industry’s (BAI) viral vaccine production to give us an update on the hog cholera menace. According to Dr. Antegro, the hog cholera program has been launched as early as 2003.
Ever since, we have had cases of hog cholera except that it has not been reported by media as intensive as the 2007 outbreak,” she said. “It only became national news because a certain swine practitioner tentatively diagnosed the outbreak as swine influenza. When we started collecting samples, we found a lot of viruses, one of which was hog cholera.”
According to the BAI, out of a 12.57 million pig population inventory in the country, the mortality rate due to hog cholera is approximately one million heads, or 8% of the swine population. This translates to a yearly approximate losses of around PhP3 billion. Last year alone, there have been 2,538 cases of hog cholera recorded in the country, with 553 deaths.
The top three regions with the most reported number of hog cholera disease were the Cordillera Autonomous Region (CAR), Region VII and Region IX. Internet sources reveal that the agent responsible for the hog cholera virus is called CSFV, from the genus Pestivirus belonging to the family Flaviviridae. It is closely related to the ruminant pestiviruses which include Bovine Viral Diarrhea (BVDV) and Border Disease (BDV). Common symptoms include high fever, skin lesions, convulsions and usually death within 15 days.
“True, there really is no known cure for hog cholera yet,” Dr. Antegro explained. “Even in humans, when we get infected with a viral disease, the only thing we can do is to rest. In the case of hog cholera, the virus attacks and destroys the blood vessels. To this day, the only thing we can do is to vaccinate the animals for prevention and we usually do this for pigs 60 days old and above. But we have to re-vaccinate every year, especially the sows and breeders.”
But the problem, according to Dr. Antegro, is that the bureau doesn’t have funds to purchase imported vaccines for backyard raisers, which accounts for around 70% of the 12 million pig population inventory. “The government gives assistance around 10,000 doses of vaccines in an area, but that is not enough to cover all backyard raisers. There are around 19 brands of hog cholera vaccines available in the market and all of them are imported.
Aside from vaccines, the BAI has employed biosecurity measures to prevent the spread of the disease. Hog raisers whose piggeries were infected by the disease, were told to dispose of carcasses either by burying or burning and disinfection of farms. The advice also extends to the installation of footbaths in farms, cleaning of vehicles and entry and exit points by fumigation and restriction of the entry of visitors. The separation of ailing pigs from healthy ones is an SOP as well as the prevention of swapping of farm equipment and feeds between farms.
Meanwhile the government has drafted a national Cholera Swine Fever (CSF) Control and Eradication Plan, the objective of which is to control and eradicate hog cholera by year 2012 (USA, UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Scandinavia are said to be CSF free countries). The strategies include the identification of the source of infection and confinement and destruction at reported sites, development of immunity through strategic vaccination, prevention movement of susceptible animals from infected to clean areas and encouragement of private sector participation in support of the eradication plan. On the other hand, program components of the plan include disease surveillance, vaccination, quarantine and information and education campaign.
As the BAI officers and employees roll out their sleeves to implement this plan, two other viruses that have recently been isolated in their laboratories are once more threatening the Philippine livestock world-the Porcine Circo Virus (PCV2) and the Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS) which was also called as Mystery Swine Disease (MSD) in the early ‘90s. While there have been isolated reports of outbreaks of these two viruses, they haven’t reached the proportion of the spread of the hog cholera outbreak reported four months ago. The government, in its massive information campaign, has not stopped at underscoring the importance of intensive hygiene practices and class segregations in commercial and backyard piggeries.
“We haven’t really done disease trending studies yet,” Dr. Antegro further explained. “But we have made observations that almost every year, between the months of October and December, a pig virus outbreak occurs. This is understandable because it is during these months when the demand for pork is high and swine raisers increase their production. Pigs congest in the farms and that’s when the outbreak happens. So we advice the pig raisers to be conscious of this. An ounce of prevention always helps.”
