The Department of Agriculture believed the African Swine Fever (ASF) outbreak in the Philippines have originated from smuggled pork products from China.
This is what DAR Secretary William Dar suspected when smuggled meat products with ASF from China were seized last month.
In a news conference in Quezon City, DAR said the refrigerated container vans with imported meat and other meat products from China had ASF.
It is said that when this commodity entered the Port of Manila last month, it was declared to contain tomato paste and vermicelli. However, it included dim sum, dumplings, peking ducks, fresh frozen duck deserts, pork meat, and pork products, marinated chicken wings, minced vegetables with meat, egg, and noodles.
Then ASF outbreaks can also come from swill feeds or “kaning baboy,” or food leftovers owners feed their pigs.
“Ang mga food waste nila ay itinapon sa Rodriguez Rizal at may nagkolekta ng swill feeds at pinakain sa baboy, doon nagsimula,” DAR added.
(They throw their food waste at Rodriguez Rizal, and some collected the swill feeds and fed them to the pigs, that’s where it started.)
DA confirms Mekeni picnic hotdog, other meat products has African Swine Fever
The Department of Agriculture and Bureau of Animal Industry confirmed today that Mekeni picnic hotdog, skinless longganisa, and other select meat products tested positive for African Swine Fever.
The Bureau of Animal Industry said Mekeni Food Corporation requested to conduct the two validation tests for African Swine Fever.
However, the agency revealed that other meat product samples from the US, Canada, and France tested negative for swine.
Department of Health Undersecretary Eric Domingo said they first inspected larger meat manufacturing plants and were able to check 63 of 178 licensed meat manufacturing plants as of today.
“We found them compliant with regulatory standards,” Domingo said.
On October 26, Mekeni Food Corp. voluntarily pulled out all of its processed meat products in the market following the reports that some of them have ASF.