EFFECTIVE midnight of Monday (August 19), Taiwan will start enforcing stricter checks on carry-on luggage of all Filipinos entering it, a precaution imposed by the Central Emergency Operation Center (CEOC), a Taiwanese news report said.
The extra check follows what Taiwan News described as “reliable” reports of an outbreak of African Swine Fever on Luzon island.
The CEOC mandate was reported by Taiwan News, which quoted the island’s CEOC as saying all bags of travelers from the Philippines will be “examined by x-ray machines at the airport and other ports of entry after midnight.”
Taiwan News cited sources, saying the ASF cases were detected in Bulacan and Rizal province, “even though the [Philippine] authorities have not reported the cases to the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE).”
The BusinessMirror‘s own reliable source has said government veterinarians have been deployed to three affected barangays in Rizal province, specifically in Rodriguez town, north of the National Capital Region.
However, officials in Rodriguez, responding to a BusinessMirror query, said earlier they were not aware of any hog deaths in the town.
Another BusinessMirror source said the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) was “still consolidating” reports, without elaborating.
According to discussions in at least two industry online groups, dozens of hogs had died in some small farms, though one group cited a total of more than a thousand.
Efforts to get confirmation from Department of Agriculture (DA) officials at press time were in vain.
The CEOC of Taiwan said its measure to add extra layers of checks on luggage of Filipino travelers is being taken to prevent the entry of ASF, a highly contagious disease affecting pigs, with mortality rates of nearly 100 percent reported in other places where ASF was reported.
ASF, however, does not affect humans.
According to Taiwan News, the Philippines “thus became the latest country to be listed as a high-risk area for ASF by the Taiwanese authorities, following China, Hong Kong, Macau, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand, North and South Korea, and Russia.”
It added that “travelers carrying pork product from ASF-affected countries to Taiwan without reporting to the authorities will face a fine of NT$200,000 (US$6,300) for the first occurrence, and NT$1 million (US$31,600) starting from the second time.”
Image credits: Suljo | Dreamstime.com, https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3764739
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