A third case of African Swine Fever has been reported in China. Three cases have now been found in three different provinces of the country.
University of Missouri livestock economist Scott Brown tells Brownfield African Swine Fever is extremely contagious and the distance between the cases is concerning – especially because China houses more than half of the world’s sow population. “If what the Chinese are working on now in terms of containment doesn’t work – and we start to see a large spread in African Swine Fever there’s some potential for that to be explosive in terms of pork markets,” he says.
The infections have occurred across a large part of China that contains tens of millions of pigs.
In the latest case, China reports that 615 pigs have been infected and 88 have died. The local government has launched its African Swine Fever contingency plan and emergency response plan where all live pigs and animal products are prohibited to enter and exit the area. A vaccine is not available for the disease and industry is relying on biosecurity, rapid diagnosis, isolation, and euthanizing the infected pigs and eliminating contaminated materials to limit the spread of the disease.
Last week, China was forced to shut down at least one processing facility for a period of six weeks to help contain the outbreak.