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NAGOYA – The outbreak of Japanese swine fever is spreading. Local authorities in five central and western prefectures announced Wednesday that they were struggling to contain the highly contagious virus that had been reported for the first time in September.
"We are facing an extremely serious situation," said Agriculture Minister Takamori Yoshikawa, at a meeting at his ministry in Tokyo, while urging officials to take strict protective measures . The ministry has also set up a special task force in Gifu Prefecture to intensify containment efforts.
Swine fever virus has been detected in Gifu farms and has recently been detected by prefectural and local authorities in nearby Aichi farms as well as in Osaka, Shiga and Nagano prefectures. .
The government held a cabinet meeting on Wednesday to discuss rapid responses with prefectural officials.
"We must prevent the spread of the virus through closer cooperation between the government and the relevant local authorities," said Cabinet Secretary-General Yoshihide Suga, asking departments, including the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, working closely together and responding to requests from the authorities. the prefectures.
"We are also asking the parties concerned to launch an information campaign so that consumers are not worried," said Suga.
The total number of hogs to be slaughtered on affected farms is expected to reach 15,000.
"It worries me not to know how the disease is spreading," said a pig farmer in Iida, Nagano Prefecture. "The only thing we can do is to properly manage hygiene."
The disease does not affect humans even if the meat of an infected animal is eaten, but it is deadly to pigs and boars.
About 130 wild boars in Gifu and Aichi prefectures were tested positive, despite the initial badumption of experts that the disease would not spread among animals, which usually do not live in large numbers. herds.
Although there is a vaccine against clbadical swine fever, its use could prevent Japan from regaining its status of the World Organization for Animal Health as a CSF free country, which would hinder the plan. Japan to increase exports of pork. The organization has already suspended Japan's status after the September epidemic.
Yasuhiro Ozato, deputy minister of agriculture chief, expressed reluctance to use the vaccine, saying, "We will try to solve this problem by complying with the standards of hygiene control."
The Aichi Prefecture Government has begun slaughtering approximately 6,600 hogs at a Toyota City farm with the help of the Land Self-Defense Force, while banning the cargo of six other farms located within 10 years. km.
Toyota's farm had shipped pigs to six facilities in Nagano, Gifu, Aichi, Mie, Shiga and Osaka prefectures since January. The ministry did not detect the virus at Mie and the prefecture government said all its tests on hogs on Toyota's farm were negative.
The Toyota farm on Monday reported to the Aichi government that pigs were showing symptoms of infection, including a loss of appetite, and that the prefecture had detected the cholera pork virus the next day, in five pigs. Detailed tests carried out by the central government confirmed the infection on Wednesday.
The Aichi government said that Toyota's farm had sent pigs to a farm in Nagano prefecture on Tuesday morning, even after finding symptoms of cholera in pigs, prefecture authorities suspecting another disease and Stopping shipments.
According to the Government of Nagano Prefecture, 79 of the 79 pigs introduced at Miyada Farm in Nagano were infected with the virus.
Governor Ichiro Matsui said that six pigs sent to a farm in Osaka Prefecture had been tested positive for the virus, adding that all pigs on the farm would be eliminated as soon as the location was determined. There are about 700 pigs on the farm, according to the prefecture.
Matsui also said that he would discuss methods with the Ministry of Agriculture.
A man involved in raising pigs who lives near the Toyota farm said: "There was a vet in the company (running the farm) .I thought they were taking action comprehensive preventive measures. "
Pig cholera was detected at a farm in Gifu City in September. It was the first such discovery in Japan since 1992. The country declared the virus eradicated in 2007.
== Kyodo
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