[ad_1]
HANOI (REUTERS, WASHINGTON POST) – Vietnam has slaughtered more than 1.2 million African swine fever infected pigs, the government said on Monday (May 13th), as the virus continues to spread rapidly across the country. the country of Southeast Asia.
Pork accounts for three-quarters of total meat consumption in Vietnam, a country of 95 million people. Most of its 30 million breeding pigs are consumed domestically.
The virus was detected for the first time in Vietnam in February and has expanded to 29 provinces, including that of Dong Nai, which supplies about 40% of the pork consumed in Ho Chi Minh City, the hub of the country. The economy of southern Vietnam.
"The risk of spread of the virus is very high and the evolution of the epidemic is complicated," the government said in a statement.
He added that many provinces have failed to detect outbreaks and effectively eliminate infected pigs due to lack of funds and space to bury dead pigs.
The disease has also spread rapidly in neighboring China.
In March, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) urged Vietnam to declare the outbreak of swine fever a national emergency.
According to the Singapore Food Agency, Vietnam is not allowed to export pork to Singapore. However, China is on the list of pork exporting countries approved by the agency.
The virus, which is not transmissible to humans, can be transmitted by dead or live pigs, domestic or wild, and by pork products. Symptoms in animals include high fever, weakness, skin lesions, diarrhea, vomiting and breathing difficulties. Death can occur a week after infection.
There is no treatment or vaccine against the disease and the only way to stop it is to eliminate all herds of affected or exposed pigs. If this happens, there will not be enough pork surplus in the world to offset the projected shortfall in Chinese production.
Affected animals have been reported in all Chinese provinces and the disease has spread to neighboring Mongolia and Cambodia.
At least 129 outbreaks have been reported since the discovery of African swine fever in August, cutting the number of pigs in China by 40 million and leading to the destruction of one million pigs, according to China's National Bureau of Statistics.
Experts believe that the number of infections and the number of hogs being culled have been significantly under-reported.
[ad_2]
Source link