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Camarines Sur 2nd district Rep. LRay Villafuerte has reiterated his proposal to the Department of Agriculture (DA) to distribute the vaccines against the African Swine Fever (ASF) to backyard hog raisers for free.

This, after DA Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. announced that the agency intends to start its ASF vaccination program by September.

In a statement on Thursday, June 18, Villafuerte said it was better to give the vaccine shots at no cost to backyard raisers given that most are still financially distressed due to the impact of ASF outbreaks and Covid-19 on their respective businesses.

He said small raisers, who account for a majority of local producers, are “in no position to shoulder the extra cost of inoculation”.

Villafuerte says that he remains optimistic that an inoculation program would finally stop the large-scale deaths of pigs and reinvigorate the ASF-plagued local hog industry.

“The anti-ASF vaccine rollout, as announced by President Marcos in May and by Secretary [Laurel] just recently, is expected to put an end to ASF-related deaths of locally grown pigs, thereby stabilizing the hog population, stanching the multibillion-peso annual losses in this livestock subsector, and eventually pulling down the retail prices of pork products that have unduly spiralled ever since this deadly virus struck the country in 2019,” he said.

According to Laurel, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has already approved the Vietnam-produced Avac vaccine against ASF.

The agriculture secretary said it would initially limit the roll-out of the vaccines to government’s use in September. It would be available for commercial use six months after that.

Meanwhile, DA Undersecretary Deogracias Victor Savellano was quoted as saying that the agency was open to the possibility of providing the vaccines for free.

Savellano emphasized that the DA’s priority was to help backyard raisers who make up around 70 to 80 percent of the country’s hog producers.

An animal disease with an almost 100 percent fatality rate for infected pigs and boars, the ASF first appeared in the Philippines in 2019. It led to a 50 percent drop in the domestic swine population from 13 million pre-ASF to 6.6 million in 2021.

According to the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI), the ASF outbreak has reached 5,324 barangays, 73 provinces, and 17 regions over the last five years.

As of mid-May, there are active ASF cases in 78 barangays, 18 municipalities 11 provinces, and seven regions of the country.