Development of GIS-Based Tracking Application and Vulnerability Assessment of African Swine Fever (ASF) Cases in Iguig, Cagayan, Philippines

Abstract

African swine fever (ASF) is an infectious disease of swine notifiable in the European Union and to the World Organization for Animal Health. Furthermore, it doesn’t have any cure yet, and vaccines are yet to be developed. As a result, early detection and proper sanitary measures are the only way to prevent it from massive transmissions (Jurado, et al., 2018). Cagayan Valley has a limited testing facility for the possible infected swine, and there’s a long process before the swine gets tested and confirmed, there is also a huge barrier in information dissemination to the swine raisers, and barangay officials, LGU’s staff, and constituents included in this issue (Gallardo, et al., 2015). Therefore, this study aims to assess and map the vulnerability of the swine in the barangays of Iguig, Cagayan through developing a mapping, informative and communicative website application to track swine with possible infection of African Swine Fever (ASF). Using SPSS, the researchers were able to find the significant relationship between the ASF vulnerability of swine and farm location, housing management, feeding management, breeding management, and health management adopted by the swine raisers. Furthermore, the Geographic Information System was used for mapping and locating swine raisers. The findings show that Iguig Cagayan is still in an infected zone which means level of vulnerability is high until now. A website application was developed for the proposed mode of updates for the current situation in the locality, and a map was embedded in the website for tracking and determining the optimal route for swine transportation, either liveweight or meat.