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BEIJING (Reuters) – China on Thursday reported four cases of African swine fever, bringing to 13 the number of outbreaks since the virus was discovered in the country a little over a month ago.
The Ministry of Agriculture said it had identified the disease on three small farms in Jiamusi, Heilongjiang Province, northeastern China, and the cities of Wuhu and Xuancheng, in the eastern province of China. # 39; Anhui.
The largest of the three farms had 203 pigs, while the smallest had only 30 pigs.
Earlier Thursday, the ministry reported a case in Chuzhou City, Anhui, on a farm of more than 800 pigs. The disease killed 22, while 62 others were infected.
The new epidemics bring to eight the number of people discovered since Sunday, raising concerns about the growing rate of infection in the country.
All new cases were in previously infected cities or, in the case of Chuzhou, relatively close to previous outbreaks.
The disease has traveled long distances to the world's largest pork producer, Jiamusi, Heilongjiang, on the border with Russia, in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, 3,000 km to the south.
Efforts to control the rapid spread of the disease by banning the transport of live pigs from and through infected areas have left traders idle, hog farm pens and slaughterhouses out of stock.
Outbreaks have pushed up pork prices in the south of the country, as demand grows ahead of the one-week holiday in October and increases import prospects.
While most of the cases were found on small farms, the Chuzhou infected farm was relatively large, highlighting the risk of some of the large, modern Chinese farms opened in recent years.
Experts say backyard farms are generally more vulnerable to infection because they have less stringent biosecurity measures.
Swine fever is transmitted by ticks and direct contact between animals. She can also travel via contaminated food, pet food and people traveling from one place to another. There is no vaccine. This is not harmful to humans.
(Report by Josephine Mason, Dominique Patton and Beijing Monitoring Desk, edited by Richard Pullin, Joseph Radford and Tom Hogue)
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