This year to October 25, some 992,000 pigs died from the disease while another 310,000 pigs have been infected, but survived. By contrast, 992,000 pigs were killed for the whole of last year out of 3.79 million that contracted the disease, said China's Agriculture Ministry of Agriculture (MOA).

Further proof that the vaccination programme is working are results collected between 1 and 25 October 2007, says the MOA.
Some 3,608 pigs were infected with PRRS - an 87 percent decrease from the previous month. There were 29 outbreaks in the same period, a fall of 65 percent on September's number of outbreaks. Also, the number of PRRS related deaths fell 91 percent.

The new vaccine, jointly developed by the Chinese Centre for Animal Disease Control and Prevention and the China Institute of Veterinary Drug Control, appears to be working very effectively. Almost one billion millilitres of vaccine have been distributed across the country, with few adverse reactions reported.
It is proving safe, and efficient and has a protection rate of 88.2 percent and none of the pig farms where healthy pigs have been vaccinated against PRRS have reported infections, says the ministry.

Protection must be proven
All vaccines on the Chinese market must be approved and have passed compulsory safety tests. Apparently, those with a protection rate lower than 80 percent are banned.

The outbreak of PRRS disease, which began in May 2006, spread throughout China before being acknowledged by the government earlier this year. It has killed around one million pigs and appears to be more contagious than previous outbreaks of the disease. The subsequent shortage of pork has driven inflation skywards.

Last month the Chinese government said the disease had peaked in June and was coming under control.

Further Reading

	- Find out more information on PRRS by clicking here.
	- Go to our previous news item on this story by clicking here.