Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte and backyard raisers in Barangay Payatas discuss the immediate culling of pigs after they tested positive for African swine fever. (Analy Labor)

The presence of African swine fever (ASF) in Quezon City was confirmed by the Department of Agriculture (DA) and the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI).

The first eight out of 45 blood samples from hogs in Barangays Bagong Silangan and Payatas tested positive for ASF.

Agriculture Undersecretary Ariel Cayanan, BAI director Ronnie Domingo and ASF Crisis Management team member, Dr Rieldrin Morales, representing DA Secretary William Dar, personally handed the official blood test results to Mayor Joy Belmonte in a meeting on Thursday afternoon.

Belmonte met with hog raisers in Payatas on Friday to discuss the immediate culling of pigs in the area.

Barangay Payatas chair Manny Guarin, who raises around 300 pigs, will lead the way in implementing the culling as part of the 1-7-10 protocol.

Belmonte said a P10-million budget for financial assistance will be allotted for ASF-affected areas even as she encouraged those from affected barangays to surrender their pigs before the budget runs out and in order to prevent the spread of ASF.

Officials also assured Belmonte of their full support and continued collaboration in combating ASF in the city.

Meanwhile, Belmonte and other local officials will have a lechon boodle fight in La Loma, also on Friday,to assure the public that roasted pigs (lechon) being sold in the area are free from ASF and safe for consumption.

“Sale of lechon in La Loma slowed down from 20 daily to two so I want to help them,” said Belmonte, who also ordered the continuous monitoring of La Loma products.

In China, pig imports from South Korea have been banned after Seoul became the latest to report an ASF outbreak that has destroyed hog herds and pushed up prices globally.

Beijing has been battling to bring an outbreak of the disease among its own pork supply chain under control after at least 1.1 million pigs were culled, an official figure that is widely believed to be much higher.

The General Administration of Customs said on Thursday it would strengthen quarantine inspections of shipments and passenger luggage from South Korea, and any illegally imported pigs would be destroyed.

This week, South Korea confirmed the first case of ASF in Paju, a city near the inter-Korea border, and agriculture minister Kim Hyun-soo said 3,950 pigs from three farms would be culled.

In June, Seoul said the disease was “highly likely” to enter the country from North Korea and ordered fences to be erected at farms along the border to prevent possible contact between pigs and wild boar.

The outbreak came three months after North Korea told the World Organization for Animal Health that dozens of pigs had died from the disease at a farm near the Chinese border, according to the South’s agriculture ministry.

The virus is not harmful to humans but causes hemorrhagic fever in pigs that is almost always fatal, and the only known way to prevent the disease from spreading is a mass cull of affected livestock.

With prices for the country’s meat staple up 50 percent in the past year, Beijing has implemented a number of measures including exempting US pork imports from trade tariffs, and auctioning 10,000 tons of pork from its strategic reserves on Thursday.

According to state news agency Xinhua, the country also released 2,400 tons of beef and 1,900 tons of mutton from state reserves earlier this month.

The moves came ahead of a week-long national holiday and celebrations for the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China on 1 October.

The ministry of commerce said after the auction that market supply is “generally guaranteed”.

Last month, the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization said almost five million pigs in Asia had died or been culled because of the spread of the disease.

In a research note Friday, analysts at Jeffries warned China’s pork crisis was “nowhere near the end.” (With reports from AFP)