As reported by The Japan News, Classical swine fever, also known as hog cholera, has now been confirmed in pig herds across five prefectures.

Work to bury pigs and sterilise facilities at two affected farms in the Aichi prefecture has been completed with 7,000 pigs culled in total and a deadline of Tuesday 19 February to complete culling. Of the four other affected prefectures, three (Nagano, Gifu and Shiga) have also completed culling, whilst Osaka continues its efforts to reach the required deadline of Saturday 16 February.

Pork products produced using meat from affected pig farms are also facing biosecurity restrictions, even though the disease does not affect humans. The risks of moving potentially-infected food products between regions is a high risk for transmission of the disease to uninfected herds as the use of food waste in pig feed is known to occur.

New analysis has determined that outbreaks between farms in Gifu and Aichi may not be directly related due to the differing virus DNA, though the route of transmission to farms in other prefectures is yet to be determined.