Philippine hog industry's losses from swine fever nearly $20 mln a month

MANILA, Oct 25 (Reuters) - The Philippine hog industry is
losing nearly $20 million a month from African swine fever
infections, agricultural officials said on Friday, after
announcing the virus has also been detected in some processed
pork products.
The highly contagious pig disease is quickly spreading in
the Philippines, the world's 10th-largest pork consumer, pushing
up prices of other meat products such as chicken.
Though not harmful to humans, the disease is deadly to pigs,
with no vaccine available.
President Rodrigo Duterte's office issued a statement late
on Thursday seeking a concerted government effort to manage,
contain and control the disease that is also wreaking havoc on
hog industries in China and other Asian countries.
In a separate media briefing, Philippine central bank
officials warned of an upside risk to inflation in 2020 amid the
swine fever scare.
In the Philippines, also the world's seventh-biggest pork
importer, the virus has hit some backyard farms in Quezon City
in Metropolitan Manila and in several provinces on the main
island of Luzon.
"There are opportunity losses for the hog industry estimated
at about 1 billion pesos ($19.5 million) a month," said Noel
Reyes, spokesman for the Department of Agriculture.
The government reported the country's first outbreak in
September. More than 60,000 pigs have since either died because
of the disease or been culled. That is less than 1% of the
country's herd estimated at 12.7 million pigs as of July.
Packets of processed pork items confiscated recently from a
local traveller, mostly home-made but also including some
"branded" products, tested positive for the virus, the
agriculture department said in a statement.
The tainted products include hotdogs, sausages and cured
meat, local media reported.
"We strongly appeal to small backyard hog raisers not to
sell their ASF-infected pigs to traders, and for traders not to
sell infected hogs, and pork and processed products so as not to
spread the ASF virus to other areas," Agriculture Secretary
William Dar said.
Reported infections are all within Luzon and some provinces
in central and southern Philippines have banned pork and
pork-based products from the disease-hit areas.