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PALAYAN CITY: Gov. Aurelio Umali has created an interagency team to
guard the province from the possible effect of hog cholera that
struck the swine industry in the adjacent provinces of Bulacan and
Pampanga.
While Umali asked the offices of provincial
agriculture, veterinary and the Philippine National Police to keep
the local hog industry free from the disease, he allayed fears of
the outbreak.
Hog cholera, it was learned, is a highly
contagious viral disease of swine that is characterized by high
fever, severe depression, reluctance to eat, multiple superficial
and internal hemorrhages.
He said Nueva Ecija has been spared from such
infestation but he said he is not leaving any thing to chance and
has appealed to hog raisers and ordinary backyard hog growers for a
mass inoculation of the swine population.
Ed Rillon, provincial information officer, said
Umali also convened an emergency task force designed to offset any
ill effects the disease may pose on the hog industry.
The members of the group shall consist of the
offices of agriculture, animal industry, health and the police.
“The governor has instructed the police
authorities under Nueva Ecija police provincial director, Senior
Supt. Agrifino Javier, to conduct checkpoints on cargo trucks to
prevent any contraband hot meat from entering the province,”
Rillon said.
It was learned that the outbreak of hog cholera
has been confined to only a few farms and is already under control.
Reports of the Bureau of Animal Industry showed that of Bulacan’s
24 towns, only San Ildefonso, Angat, Doña Remedios Trinidad,
Norzagaray and San Jose del Monte have not had any case of the swine
disease.
Meanwhile, of 21 towns in Pampanga, only the
towns of Arayat, Sasmuan, Santa Ana, Mabalacat and Mexico have so
far been spared infection from hog cholera.
--Armand M. Galang
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