African Swine Fever Attacks Liaoning Province in China

Pig
Pig (photo: Pixabay)
By Faith MagbanuaOctober 16th, 2018

A few days after China's agriculture ministry stated in an interview last Friday that an outbreak of African swine fever is affecting Tianjin, another news emerged as the virus reaches Liaoning province.

Tianjin located just southeast of Beijing, is the first to be reported in the municipality to be hit by the fever outbreak. However, a few days after the initial statement, China's agriculture ministry said on Monday, October 15. 2018 that 14 pigs have died in a fresh outbreak of African swine fever in the province of Liaoning.

The fever was found on a farm that had 639 pigs, with 292 infected and 189 dying of the disease, according to a statement from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, which earlier on Friday reported that the fourth outbreak this week is in northeastern China's Liaoning province.

On the other hand, the outbreak in the city of Anshan is the fifth reported in the northeastern province.

So far, China has reported some 30 outbreaks of the pig disease, which does not affect humans.

Meanwhile, the Tianjin case represents the closest African swine fever outbreak, which does not affect humans, to  appear in Beijing after around 30 outbreaks across China since August 3, 2018.

On the other hand, thousands of swines have been culled in an effort to preclude the spread of the highly contagious fever, for which there is no vaccine, through the world's largest pig herd.

Officials have previously spoken about the need to make sure that the Chinese capital is supplied with sufficient amounts of pork amid the flurry of outbreaks across the country.

Still, there are a few farms in the immediate proximity to Beijing but the Hebei province which surrounds both Beijing and Tianjin is a major pig-farming region. In hindsight, no outbreaks of swine fever in Hebei have been reported so far.

 

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