Cases Keep Coming: African Swine Fever in Vietnam, China

February 27, 2019 — 

The concern Vietnam officials had that African swine fever (ASF) would continue to spread is coming true. ASF has now hit two more provinces after it was first detected on three separate farms in two other provinces earlier this month. [Source: Pork Business 25 Feb 2019 by Jennifer Shike]

The new farms struck by the highly contagious disease are in Haiphong and Thanh Hoa provinces, about 60 miles to the east and 100 miles to the south of Hanoi, respectively, according a Reuters article on Monday. Authorities have culled all the pigs at the farms, including 226 pigs at the farm in Thanh Hoa province.

The virus is spreading around the capital city of Hanoi, the site of the second summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un later this week.

The disease is harmless to humans but is highly transmissible and deadly among pigs. It has spread rapidly across neighboring China since August.

"Our first priority at the moment is to contain the disease from spreading," Deputy Minister of Agriculture Phung Duc Tien said in the report. "If it spreads further, it will be very difficult to contain."

Pork is a major staple and accounts for 75% of the total meat consumption in Vietnam, a country of 95 million people where most of its 30 million farm-raised pigs are consumed domestically.

Two More Outbreaks in China

On Sunday, China confirmed two new ASF outbreaks - one in the northern province of Hebei and the other in the northern region of Inner Mongolia.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said the first outbreak occurred on a farm in the Xushui district of Baoding city which has 5,600 hogs. The farm has been quarantined and the herd slaughtered.

The second outbreak is in the remote Greater Khingan Mountains in Inner Mongolia, where 210 of the 222 wild boars raised on the farm died, the ministry said. The rest of the herd has been slaughtered.

China has reported more than 100 cases of the disease in 27 provinces and regions since last August.