The Department of Agriculture (DA) hopes to eradicate the African swine fever (ASF) in the country by the end of the year, after one vaccine for mass trials has been approved and is expected to be billed out soon.

In a post-SoNA discussion on Tuesday, Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. said the ASF poses a big challenge for the local hog industry and he was looking at biosecurity as one solution.

“But biosecurity alone is not enough, in my opinion, in our opinion. [And] one ASF vaccine, which was recently approved, will be billed out to the DA this August,” he said. “Hopefully, by September, it will be implemented. We will vaccinate [the] red zones and yellow zones, hopefully eradicating this for the growers.”

“Hopefully, by the end of the year, it will be almost gone,” he added.

Laurel said the DA is forming a Certificate of Product Registration (CPR) for the ASF vaccine.

“Hopefully that will be out by August, and for bidding, awarding and rollout by September,” Laurel said, citing an open bid. “Because, at the moment, there’s only one actually accredited vaccine. [T]here is no other competitor at the moment.”

He, however, said the CPR is only for government use in mass trials.

Laurel noted that after six months of trials, if everything goes well, the ASF vaccine will be ready for commercial use.

Meanwhile, Laurel said the Q fever seemed to be endemic to the Philippines.

“I sent a team to America, and it seems that [the Q fever] is not coming from there. It seems to be endemic to us. But after further research into the issue, it’s not that many [areas] are affected,” he said, adding that the affected areas were limited.

“It seems to be easy to treat with the available medicines we have in the Philippines. Our protocols, the policies of the Bureau of Animal Industry, to strengthen it to further make sure that none of these diseases will escape the quarantine,” Laurel added.