As of yesterday afternoon, unsafe pork was still being sold in many markets

In many areas in Quang Nam province these days, local people are trying to sell pigs despite the ban and warnings from local authorities. A pig breeder in Thang Binh District, for instance, said she wanted to sell as many of them as possible now that the epidemic had spread there.

Another pig breeder here said for the past 5 days pig breeders had been killing pigs secretly and travelling to remote villages to sell them. And on many roads, pig sellers have been racing their motorbikes to transport pigs from diseased quarters to scattered slaughterhouses.

Asked whether he was afraid of being caught, a pig seller grinned, “It isn’t easy to catch us. Inspection people only work during the day, and pig sellers have countless ways to bypass them.”

And though the Quang Nam People’s Committee has forbidden any pig killing within the province since the afternoon of July 16, as late as yesterday afternoon, pork was still being sold freely in many markets in the Da Nang city area.

A pork seller at Hoi An market said, “Nobody has ever said anything about the pork sale ban. My pork is from identifiable sources, clean and disease-free and every piece has quality inspection stamps.”

According to Chairman of the Hoi An commune People’s Committee Le Van Giang, the disease has spread to only a few small areas in the commmune and local authorities are doing all that they can to prevent it from spreading wider such as inspecting pigs before sending them to slaughterhouses or markets.

In markets where cooked pork is still being sold, however, customers have no way of knowing whether these pigs have been inspected or not. Another alarming phenomenon is occuring in Thang Binh district, the key green-ear area of Quang Nam: some people have been digging up dead pigs for their bones and meat to sell to restaurants.