Given the loose government control over veterinary drugs unlawfully sold in the countryside, industry stakeholders fear there could soon be a human-induced swine pandemic of disastrous proportion, perhaps far worse than the African swine fever outbreaks the Philippines has seen in recent past
African swine fever
“Our immediate concern now is to save the animals and to be able to resume live hog export shipment to Singapore within a year. Otherwise we could lose our long-standing supply contract with its government,” the insider, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, said. Before the trouble started, PT Indo Tirta Suaka was delivering 1,000 live hogs to Singapore daily, a shipment accounting for 15% of the city-state’s total pork supply.
In biology, shedding is the process of releasing a virus or bacterium from a cell or body through the environment through blood, tears and other body fluids where it can infect other animals or people. Less than six month after Tobiano’s well-publicized meeting with DA Senior Undersecretary Domingo Panganiban and Bureau of Animal Industry director Paul Imson, several vials of the vaccine arrived in the country for safety and efficacy trials in company-selected swine farms.
The AVAC product is one of two Vietnam-made biologicals touted to become the world’s first duly approved ASF vaccine authorized to be sold globally. The source was short in saying the vaccine gained regulators’ nod from lobbying and political patronage. “Even if approved by FDA, we still will not use AVAC vaccines as the results do not show 100% immunity”, said Nattakorn “Golf” Sujipittham, head of CP Foods Philippines’ swine operation, in an email sent to this writer recently. He made the reply when asked if his firm was willing to buy the AVAC vaccine if and when sold in the local market.
USDA added it has raised serious doubts and concern regarding the strain’s safety, saying “its genome is very unstable, potentially leading to reversion of virulence when used on pigs.” While AVAC Vietnam’s American partner Aptimmune Biologicals was fully aware of the USDA federal notice, it admitted to have been supplying the withdrawn ASF strain to AVAC as part of their vaccine research and development collaboration.
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