China strengthens slaughter regulations to combat African swine fever
CHINA (Reuters) - China's agriculture ministry said on Wednesday that slaughterhouses will need run African swine fever virus test for pig products before selling them to the market, in a move to control spread of the highly contagious disease
2 January 2019
3 minute read
By: - African swine fever found on a farm with 73,000 pigs, biggest farm yet to report the disease
- The disease situation is only getting worse - analyst
- China has culled more than 200,000 pigs due to the deadly virus
Slaughterhouses must slaughter the pigs from different origins separately, and can only sell the products if blood of the same batch of pigs is tested negative for African swine fever virus, according to a new regulation published on the website of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.
If an African swine fever outbreak is found, slaughterhouses must cull all pigs to be slaughtered and suspend operations for at least 48 hours, according to the regulation, which will go into effect from 1 February 2019.
The new government move came as China reported on Wednesday a new outbreak of African swine fever on a farm with 73,000 pigs in Heilongjiang province, the largest farm yet to report a case of the deadly disease, further highlighting the increasing severity of the outbreak.
The case in Suihua city in the northeastern province infected 4,686 pigs and killed 3,766 animals, the agriculture ministry said in a separate statement on its website.
"The African swine fever situation is only getting worse. Small farms, big farms, slaughterhouses, feed - the whole production chain basically all got hit," said Yao Guiling, an analyst with consultancy China-America Commodity Data Analytics.
"The policies are good, but the increasing outbreaks show that there might be some problem with execution at the local government level," said Yao.
Beijing has banned feeding kitchen waste to pigs, and restricted transport of live pigs and products from infected areas, among other measures, to control spread of the disease.
But the deadly virus has raged on, and hit 23 provinces and municipalities across China, since the first outbreak was reported in early August last year.
China has reported more than 90 cases of the incurable disease so far, leading to the culling of more than 200,000 pigs.
The disease is deadly for pigs but does not harm humans.
Reporting by Hallie Gu and Ryan Woo; editing by Richard Pullin and David Evans
Ryan Johnson
Ryan worked in conservation from 2008 to 2017, during which time he operated a rainbow trout hatchery and helped to maintain public and protected green spaces in Canada for the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority. As editor of The Poultry Site, he now writes about challenges and opportunities in agriculture across the globe.
