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THE provincial government of Bulacan has assured the public that
pork meat coming from the province is safe to eat. He maintained
that swine flu, which reportedly infected hogs raised in several
provinces in Central Luzon, has not seriously affected the livestock
industry.
In a weekly breakfast forum in Quezon City,
Bulacan Gov. Joselito Mendoza clarified that although Bulacan was
hit by the swine flu, the number of infected swine was much less as
compared to other provinces where there are more backyard hog
raisers.
Mendoza explained that swine infected by the
so-called hog cholera were mostly from those backyard raisers, and
in Bulacan, 80 percent of hogs are from commercial raisers that is
why they were not affected that much.
“We want to inform the public that not all
pig meat being sold in Metro Manila come from Bulacan, and Bulacan
is not the only province that was infected by the ‘hog cholera.’
But we can assure that meat coming from our province are safe,”
Mendoza continued.
He also said that some traders are partly to
blame in the swine-flu scare because they have taken advantage of
the disease to force small-time hog raisers to sell their swine at a
lower price.
Mendoza added that although the disease is not
that serious and that infected hogs can recover from the disease,
some traders use that hog cholera to scare the backyard raisers and
force them to sell their pigs.
To further boost his claim, Mendoza said he is
planning to invite the members of the press and the residents of
Bulacan to witness them eat pork meat from backyard raisers to show
to the people that it is safe.
The Bureau of Animal Industry announced that
the spread of hog cholera and other diseases that hit some pig farms
in the provinces of Bulacan and Pampanga was already under control.
Based on the data of BAI, 43 barangays in 11
towns and one city in Bulacan were affected by hog cholera, or a
total 2,823 hogs, have caught the disease.
Mendoza said continuous monitoring of pig farms
are know being done by the provincial government to prevent the
spread of the disease and checkpoints have been put up to prevent
infected or double dead pigs to be transported to Manila.
--Jefferson Antiporda
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