The City of Mati remains to be free from the African Swine Fever despite neighboring provinces already registering infection.

Mati City Veterinary Services Office head Dr. Marites Linsag Erispe said on Tuesday, November 24, that they have still not monitored any incidents of ASF infection in the city.

On Tuesday, the Mati City Vet along with the National Meat Inspection Service and other concerned agencies inspected various meat shops and markets in the city and confiscated hundreds of packs of processed meat products like tocino and chorizo being sold without the necessary papers.

In one shop alone, 418 packs of chorizo and 242 packs of tocino were confiscated and buried for violation of City Ordinance No. 71 series of 2011 and Republic Act 9296 or the Meat Inspection Code of the Philippines.

Another shop was also discovered selling meat products but the team failed to confiscate the illegal products as they were all frozen hard inside the freezer and it would take some time before the meat products would thaw.

The team vowed to return to ensure that the illegal products are disposed of properly.

Dr. Erispe meawnhile appealed to all meatshop vendors, especially online sellers, to make sure that the products they are selling do not come from areas with known ASF-infection.

She also appealed to backyard hog raisers to readily notify their office in case their pigs gets sick. She also advised them not to feed the hogs with swill feeds or lamaw as this is the common mode of transmission of the ASF virus.

Erispe said they can supply hog raisers with hog feeds if need be.

Davao Occidental was the first province in the region to have reported incident of ASF. This was followed by Davao City, Davao del Norte and just recently Davao de Oro. (CIO MATI)