The Department of Agriculture on Tuesday amplified its calls for the Philippines to have approved domestic and commercial use of vaccines to combat African swine fever, or ASF.

In a press briefing, DA Undersecretary Roger Navarro said that the absence of the ASF vaccine is a challenge to the country’s agriculture sector.

He also revealed that the country already has ASF vaccines, but they have not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

“That’s the challenge of DA. And the backyard is somehow gone and we need to manage our ASF cases by way of really accessing the supply of vaccines. So that is really one of the challenges that we have right now,” Navarro said.

According to the DA official, the government talked to the different suppliers of swine vaccines in Vietnam during President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s state visit to Hanoi in late January. He, however, clarified that it was not Marcos who talked to the suppliers.

“Not the President, we were just there together with the President, but on the side, we were talking to several suppliers, not only for vaccines but also for rice, so on the sides,” Navarro said.

“Because we were thinking, the secretary of Agriculture was thinking that we need a supply of vaccines and somehow, we need to talk to them, because we know from experiments from news and from the data from other sources that Vietnam has successfully put up the vaccine for ASF. And right now, it’s going to be commercialized and we in the Philippines would like to get the stocks or the vaccine supply from Vietnam,” he added.

The DA said that they encouraged the Vietnam ASF vaccine manufacturers to apply for permits in the country to undergo FDA review.