By John Rey Saavedra | Philippine News Agency
CEBU CITY — The veterinary department of the city government here on Thursday removed more than a thousand banned canned meat products from the shelves of supermarkets and grocery stores.
Cebu City Veterinarian Alice Utlang said they conducted the inspection on nine establishments since Wednesday, in compliance with the advisory issued by the Food and Drug Administration on the ban of certain meat products coming from countries affected by African swine fever (ASF) and manufactured on Aug. 25, 2018 onwards.
Utlang said her office has been visiting grocery stores and supermarkets displaying banned processed meat products from ASF-infected countries since last year, shortly after learning about the outbreak of the virus in several European and Asian countries.
She said she was surprised to learn that to date, her staff from the Department of Veterinary Medicine and Fisheries continue to discover more canned meat products bearing the manufacturing date.
“I’m just happy that they withdrew the banned products even before my staff arrived. They cooperated,” Utlang said.
The city veterinarian noted that the virus affects wild boars and native pigs and does not affect humans.
Humans, however, may become carriers of the virus and infect local hogs, eventually affecting the country’s PHP200-billion hog industry.
“Let’s protect our borders from the virus because it’s already in neighboring countries like China,” Utlang said, adding that the virus could not be easily eliminated even if the infected meat is subjected to 70 degrees Centigrade heat while being cooked.
She urged pork meat-eaters in Cebu to patronize locally manufactured products, instead of buying imported ones, which are not guaranteed to be ASF-free.
“I am requesting the public to refrain from buying imported canned goods from ASF-infected countries, or check the production date, which should be before Aug. 25, 2018,” she said in a message sent to the Philippine News Agency (PNA).
“If they can, just patronize our locally processed products because we are 100 percent sure that they are ASF-free,” she added
