These were the conclusions of a survey carried out for the US Meat Export Federation in China and reported to the World Pork Conference in Qingdao today (Thursday).

Joel Haggard, Senior Vice President for the Asia Pacific Region of the USMEF told the conference that concerns still remained among Chinese consumers over the A/H1N1 virus.

He said the survey was carried out for the USMEF by the Chinese market research company Sinotrace to discover whether China had experienced similar reaction to the outbreak as in the US and Mexico earlier this year.

He said that at the time the US consumers initially shunned pork.

The survey in China found that at the time of the outbreak, 64 per cent of those who replied to the survey refrained from eating pork during the outbreak.

Now 27.1 per cent are still not eating pork and about a quarter of those surveyed believed that A/H1N1 flu virus could be contracted through eating pork.

Mr Haggard said that the continued reaction to the H1N1 outbreak could have been a strong contributor to the drop in pig meat prices in China this year.