SANTO DOMINGO. – Sales of Villa Mella’s famous pork crisps (chicharrón) plunged 50 percent in the last few weeks after the threat from the A H1N1 virus, several vendors said.

Although pork doesn’t transmit the AH1N1, customers have refrained from eating chicharron from fear of contracting the virus which has already claimed 26 lives in Mexico and one in the United States.

Many eateries previously full of customers who consider pork crisps, entrails and sausages a delicacy, now seem deserted, as several have even had to close after the threat of the pandemic.

Nicolasa de Jesus Marte who has a business in a small plaza in the avenue Mirabal Sisters, said she’s been a chicharron vendor since she was young, and has never seen her business suffer from the lack of customers. “It is totally falling. I used to finish selling before 5 p.m. and now I must wait until 10 p.m. to be able to sell something.”

She complained that fewer sales also force the slaughter houses to limit production. “We no longer find neither tripe or anything in the market because those people (pig farmers) are scared of even slaughtering those pigs to sell them.”