Thailand on red alert in bid to stop 'Pig Ebola' crossing border

[Nereus]

Thailand on red alert in bid to stop 'Pig Ebola' crossing border

https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-as ... g-border-0

BANGKOK • Thailand, one of Asia's top pork producers, is intensifying efforts to hold off a lethal pig virus that is causing havoc as it spreads across the region.

African swine fever - a disease that kills nearly all the pigs it infects - has been spreading through Asia from China and Mongolia to Vietnam and Cambodia. Millions of pigs have been culled, creating a global protein shortage and saddling farmers and food businesses with billions of dollars in costs.

"We're on red alert for the pig virus," said Mr Anan Suwannarat, the permanent secretary in Thailand's Agriculture Ministry.

"We're trying everything to prevent it from spreading to Thailand."
Thailand has tightened inspections at airports and border checkpoints, cracked down on illegal slaughterhouses and traders, and imposed stricter requirements for reporting hog deaths.

The authorities have detected contaminated pork products at airports and borders, but have not yet found any cases at farms.

China, the largest pork producer and consumer, has been trying to contain the outbreak since August.

But with no vaccine, the virus keeps spreading.
The strain of African swine fever spreading in Asia is undeniably nasty, killing virtually every pig it infects by a haemorrhagic illness reminiscent of Ebola in humans. It is not known to sicken people, however.

Vietnam, South-east Asia's biggest pork producer, discovered its first case in February. Cambodia - sandwiched between Vietnam and Thailand - reported its first infection less than two months later.

Hong Kong confirmed its first case of African swine fever last week at a slaughterhouse which gets its pigs from the Chinese mainland. The authorities promptly cut hog imports from China and ordered the culling of all 6,000 of the facility's pigs. They also closed down another major slaughterhouse and warned of short-term pork shortages.

Dr Cheerasak Pipatpongsopon, deputy director-general of Thailand's Livestock Department, said: "Preventing the outbreak is our national agenda. Even if it gets into the country, we'll be quick in containing the outbreak to minimise the damage to the industry."

The Agriculture Ministry estimates that an outbreak may cost the Thai economy over US$1 billion (S$1.38 billion) if more than 50 per cent of the country's hogs are infected. That could hit nearly US$2 billion if 80 per cent are infected.

The Thai government last month approved a US$4.7 million budget to prepare the nation for a potential outbreak of the virus.

"No country is safe," said Professor Dirk Pfeiffer of the Department of Infectious Diseases and Public Health at City University of Hong Kong. "There's a high risk of introduction of the virus for Thailand, as is the case for every country in the region and beyond."

Thailand produces more than two million hogs each year, and exports about 40 per cent to Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar.
It does not import live hogs or pork meat, according to Dr Cheerasak, and now visitors are not permitted to bring processed pork products into the country.

An outbreak in South-east Asia's second-largest economy could pose a risk for major food companies like Charoen Pokphand Foods, and threaten 180,000 smallholders.

Experts also warned that pork prices worldwide are set to soar due to the outbreak, with The Telegraph reporting that international wholesale pork prices have increased by 20 per cent.

"African swine fever will be the biggest influence on global meat markets possibly for the next few years, if not possibly the decade," the British newspaper quoted Mr Tim Ryan, a Singapore-based market analyst with trade group Meat & Livestock Australia, as saying.
"I don't think there's going to be enough meat around the world available to actually fill the gap."

https://www.bangkokpost.com/news/world/ ... recent_box

Vietnam culls 1.7m pigs as virus spreads to new areas

Vietnam culled more than 1.7 million pigs as African swine fever spread across the country, with officials warning the disease may penetrate sizable commercial farms next.

About 5% of the nation’s pig population has been culled as the number of infected provinces and cities increased to 42, the government said on its website. The epidemic will likely continue expanding to other locations and bigger farms, according to the agricultural ministry’s forecasts.

The rainy season and subsequent flooding in the southwestern region of the Mekong Delta has exacerbated the spread of the disease and affected the burial of culled animals. Even in areas where there have been no new cases for at least 30 days, outbreaks may recur, the government said.

The government said it has received feedback on a higher compensation rate for affected farmers. The current rate of 38,000 dong 52 baht) per kilogramme for live hogs is prompting farmers to hide or delay reports of infections. They also try to sell infected animals.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/22/busi ... ule=inline

A Vicious, Untreatable Killer Leaves China Guessing
African swine fever, which harms pigs but not humans, has swept across the country, the world’s largest pork producer. And the government knows about only some of the cases.

XIJIAHE, China — The plague’s victims die gruesomely.

First, a high fever. The skin goes flushed, purplish. There is a discharge from the eyes and nose. Bloody diarrhea. And within days, death. The survival rate is near zero.

By China’s official estimates, the present outbreak of African swine fever, which affects pigs but is harmless to humans, has already been catastrophic. More than a million pigs have been culled, according to the Chinese government. A billion-plus pork-loving people are facing much tighter supplies. The need to fill the gap is influencing meat markets worldwide.

But the reality of the epidemic may be grimmer still. Several farmers said in interviews that they had not reported potential infections among their animals to the local authorities. Others said officials had not responded quickly to reported outbreaks.

As a result, many farmers and livestock analysts say they assume that the highly contagious disease has infected more pigs, in more places, than Chinese officials have acknowledged.

When Ge Xiuxiu’s pigs started dying this year, he did not tell the authorities. Mr. Ge, 48, doubts that the government can afford to keep its promise to compensate farmers like him who have been affected by the outbreak.
“Reporting it wouldn’t have made a difference,” he said, standing outside his farm in Xijiahe, a village in China’s Shandong Province. “Who would have done anything about it? Whoever does anything has to pay up.”

The need to get a grip on African swine fever could not be more urgent for China, the world’s largest producer and consumer of pork. Yet the official response seems to fit a pattern from previous crises involving public health and safety in the country, including an AIDS epidemic in the 1990s, an outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome in the early 2000s and a widespread tainting of baby formula in 2008.

The authorities’ tendency to hush up such problems engenders public distrust. Distrust makes the problems even harder to solve.

In the current crisis, the distrust is being felt not just by farmers and industry specialists, but by consumers as well. Some Chinese shoppers, skeptical of assurances that the disease does not harm human health, are starting to shun pork.

[oakdale160]

It is scary--this virus does nor attack humans at the moment, one mutation and who knows.

[centermid7]

In a land where they cannot find their arse with both hands, be it Thailand, China, or anywhere else within the region, who thinks that this is going to be successful? I hope it is TBS, but as a sporting man I would be betting against it.

[handdrummer]

"You couldn't tell the pigs from the men." G. Orwell, Animal Farm.

[oakdale160]

I disagree about China, they can be ruthless with their Public Health measures. I was in Beijing in 03 when SARS hit , the quarantine regulations that were enforced would not have been possible in any western country.

[Nereus]

I disagree about China, they can be ruthless with their Public Health measures. I was in Beijing in 03 when SARS hit , the quarantine regulations that were enforced would not have been possible in any western country.

The problem in China is the vast numbers of both pigs and farmers involved. No farmer is going to report that he has a sick pig knowing full well that the authorities will came and cull his entire herd, or whatever the Chinese call them.
It appears that the same thing is also happening in Vietnam.

[oakdale160]

Good point, Nereus

[Nereus]

Vietnam culls 1.7m pigs as virus spreads to new areas

Vietnam culls 2m pigs, urges whole nation to fight swine fever

https://www.bangkokpost.com/news/asean/ ... recent_box

HANOI: Vietnam said on Friday it has culled 2 million pigs in a bid to curb an outbreak of deadly African swine fever and called on the entire nation to join the fight against the rapidly spreading disease.

The virus had spread to 48 of the country's 63 provinces, Agriculture Minister Nguyen Xuan Cuong said at a meeting of parliament, upping the number of pigs culled from 1.7 million less than a week ago.

Pork accounts for three-quarters of total meat consumption in Vietnam, a country of 95 million people where most of its 30 million farm-raised pigs are consumed domestically.
"This is an extremely dangerous disease ... and we have to take the fight seriously," Cuong said. "The whole political system has to get engaged in the fight."

Cuong also called on local consumers not to turn their back on pork consumption and encouraged businesses to stockpile pork in anticipation of shortages in the second half of the year.

"We shouldn't expand the pig herd at the moment, but instead, shift the focus on expanding cattle, poultry and aquaculture production," he added.

Vietnam's pork industry is valued at around 94 trillion dong (126 billion baht), accounting for nearly 10% of the country's agricultural sector.

Cuong said the outbreak is threatening to expand to the rest of the country as the virus remains dormant in the environment for a long time and can spread through complex and varied means.

African swine fever was first detected in Asia last August in China, the world's largest pork producer, where Rabobank has estimated up 200 million pigs could be culled or die. Other analysts do not expect such a large impact.

South Korea said on Friday the disease has been detected in North Korea near it's border with China.

Earlier this month, Vietnam said it will mobilise its military and police forces to help combat the outbreak.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in March advised Vietnam to declare the swine fever outbreak as a national emergency.

[Nereus]

Despite culls, import bans, swine fever to hit pork market for years

https://www.bangkokpost.com/news/world/ ... recent_box

HANOI: Millions of pigs have been culled as African Swine Fever cuts through China and beyond, devastating global food chains, with pork prices expected to soar from the food markets of Hong Kong to American dinner tables.

Outbreaks have been reported in Vietnam, Mongolia, Cambodia, Hong Kong and China -- the world's biggest pork producer and consumer.
Experts warn it could take years to contain the hog-killing virus given the differing biosecurity standards on commercial pig farms and backyard smallholdings across Asia.

Checkpoints, sniffer dogs and strict import bans have been deployed in a desperate bid to control its spread.

But the disease has already hit most provinces in China, reducing pork production by 30% according to some estimates.
Beijing's official statistics say around one million pigs have been killed since the first outbreak in August last year -- but that is widely considered to be an underestimate.

Live pig prices are up by around 40% year-on-year in China, and pork imports from Europe, Canada and Brazil into the country are climbing.

Beef and poultry exports are also on the rise as suppliers scramble to fill the deficit in a region where pork is the staple protein -- fried, grilled, boiled and eaten by tens of millions each day in noodle bowls and rice dishes.
Some Asian consumers have already started paying more for pork.

And America is also soon expected to feel the pinch -- likely around Christmas when people buy holiday hams.
"The price impact will be sizeable," said Christine McCracken, senior animal protein analyst at Rabobank, speaking from the US.

She estimates that 200 million pigs could be culled in China -- more than half the swine population in the country, which supplies around 50% of the world's pork.
Losing that many pigs could cause global pork supplies to dip by 8%, McCracken said.


- Trotting into trouble -

Experts predict it could take anywhere from two to 10 years for the virus to be fully contained in Asia, while fears are mounting of a global scourge embedding in farms with poor biosecurity standards and wild boar populations.
"When a virus becomes endemic like that, we're going to be living with this forever," Matthew Stone, deputy director-general at the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) told AFP in Paris.

That will hammer the pork industry and spin-off sectors such as the soybean business used for animal feed, Stone said, warning of "significant uncertainty" in global markets for years to come.

As the virus cuts through Asia, pork imports into China have soared -- shipments from the EU alone are up 20 to 30%, according to McCracken.

But global supplies are not enough to plug the huge gap.
That has opened an unexpected opportunities elsewhere.

Global poultry production is expected to rise 3% this year, according to the US Department of Agriculture.
Australia's cattle farmers are also eyeing the Chinese market.

But even those chicken and beef stopgaps might not be enough to feed China's pork-hungry population.
"There isn't enough global pork available to China directly, nor is there enough other protein," McCracken told AFP.

That will deepen the misery for Chinese diners already feeling a price squeeze -- as well as customers in its main exports markets like Hong Kong where the cost of imported pork has more than doubled.

At a busy Hong Kong market, butcher Woo said customers can no longer afford to buy as much pork.
"I've reduced supplies from two to one pig a day now," he said.

[handdrummer]

Vegans rejoice!

[Khundon1975]

With virtually all of Thailand Western border wide open, how is Thailand going to stop any of these diseases coming in.
OK, easy to do at border crossings where this can be monitored and enforced, but much of the rest is open to anyone bringing a few pigs in.

As Nereus has said before, some dirt poor farmer ain’t going to say a word if he’s got a few iffy pigs, he’s going to flog then on double quick and if that means slipping them across the border, he’s going to do it.

[Nereus]

Frozen pork haul prompts swine fever concern

https://www.bangkokpost.com/news/genera ... recent_box

The seizure of 558 frozen pigs in Bangkok’s On Nut area has sparked fears of an African Swine Fever outbreak as the meat is believed to have been smuggled in from neighbouring countries.

The owner of the pork, whose name was not released, could not tell officials where the pigs had been raised but admitted he planned to sell them to “four famous restaurants in Bangkok with mu han [roasted suckling pigs] on their menus,” Sorawit Thaneto, chief of the Livestock Development Department, said.

Police and livestock officials yesterday raided the owner’s three-storey house in On Nut Soi 35 where they found 1,400 kilogrammes of pork kept in two refrigerated rooms.
The man was arrested for failing to present documents indicating the source of the pigs and proof that the meat had been inspected by officials.

“His act posed a risk as the carcasses may contain diseases. It’s unsafe to consumers,” Mr Sorawit said.

His department is also working with other agencies to stay alert to the outbreak of African Swine Fever, or ASF, which has spread from Europe and Africa to three Asian countries — China, Mongolia and Vietnam.

There has been no sign of the disease here, but the government decided to launch 148-million-baht of precautionary measures to protect pork businesses in the country.

Thai travellers to neighbouring countries are also warned against bringing processed pork like naem (fermented pork) and kun chiang (Chinese sausages) back home.

The latest outbreak has caused China and Vietnam to cull several million pigs.

[oakdale160]

Please correct me if I am ill informed, but I am not aware that there has been any 'species jump' and that any human being has been infected by this microbe. That being the case this meat is no threat to humans.

[Coldmike]

Agreed. But could mean not much pork for eatin’ for awhile. Would be bad for Thai and other SE Asian economies as well as my preferred diet

[Nereus]

Millions of pigs culled as swine fever spreads through Asia

https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/16994 ... rough-asia

HANOI: Millions of pigs have been culled in China and Vietnam as a UN food agency urges Asian governments to make containing virulent African swine fever their top priority.

With an announcement by the UN Food and Agricultural Organization that infections have spread to Laos, some experts are saying it is the largest animal disease outbreak in history.

The FAO said in a report late Thursday that more than 3.7 million pigs in the region had been culled since the outbreak began in China last August. Vietnam has been the hardest hit, culling at least 2.6 million pigs followed by China, which reported more than 1.1 million. All the figures were provided to the FAO by governments of countries affected by the epidemic.

Smaller outbreaks have been reported in Hong Kong, Taiwan, North Korea, Cambodia and Mongolia after cases were first reported in China's northeast in August.

African swine fever is harmless to people but fatal and highly contagious for pigs, with no known cure.

With pork supplies dwindling as leading producer China and hard-hit Vietnam destroy huge numbers of hogs and tighten controls on shipments, prices have soared by up to 40% globally and caused shortages in other markets.

"This is the largest animal disease outbreak in history,'' said Dirk Pfieffer, a veterinary epidemiologist at the City University of Hong Kong. "We've never had anything like it.''

In South Korea, where diets rely heavily on pork, there is concern an outbreak could hurt an industry with 6,300 farms raising more than 11 million pigs.

"Animal disease containment in its broadest sense should be prioritised within the highest levels of governments,'' the FAO said, warning, "Outbreak control strategies must be in place.''

China has reported 139 outbreaks in all but two of its 34 provinces.

The US Department of Agriculture forecasts its total hog herd will shrink by 18% this year to 350 million animals, the lowest since the 1980s. This year's Chinese pork output might fall by up to 35%, according to Rabobank, a Dutch bank.

Vietnam reported in mid-May that 1.2 million pigs, or about 5% of its total 30 million, an industry worth $18 billion, had died or been destroyed. FAO said Thursday that number had more than doubled to 2.6 million. Military and police were mobilized to help contain the outbreak, officials said.

Rabobank expects Vietnamese pork production to fall 10% this year from 2018.

The mass culling in Vietnam could sink many farmers deeper into poverty, said Wantanee Kalpravidh, a regional coordinator of the FAO's Emergency Center for Transboundary Animal Disease.
Last month, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc urged authorities to prevent the disease, found in 58 of 63 provinces, from escalating into an epidemic.

In My Duc, a suburb of Hanoi, disinfecting lime powder has been scattered around empty pig farms and checkpoints were set up to control shipments.
"We have to prevent and fight this disease like fighting an enemy,'' Phuc told Cabinet officials.

Farmer Nguyen Van Hoa lamented that only three pigs had died from the fever but authorities culled 40 of his pigs. They were among 14,000 hogs buried in My Duc district in the past month.

About 2.4 million Vietnamese households engage in small-scale pig farming.

In Cambodia, more than 2,400 pigs have died or were culled since April in an eastern province bordering Vietnam, the FAO said.
Sem Oun, a 58-year-old farmer and father of two in Ta Prum, a village near the capital Phnom Penh, frets that the illness could spread from Vietnam.

"I don't have any other job and my income that provides for my entire family relies solely on these pigs. If they die because of swine flu then everybody in the family will die too,'' he told The Associated Press.

Hong Kong authorities have killed 10,700 pigs in two outbreaks, including one triggered by an animal imported from the mainland that was found to be infected. Two dead pigs infected with a virus similar to those in mainland Chinese were found in Taiwan, the FAO says.

Epidemic fighting efforts have gotten entangled in regional geopolitics.

North Korea scaled back cooperation with South Korea after the collapse of a February summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump, hampering joint work on stemming the spread of the disease following an outbreak near North Korea's border with China.

South Korea's agricultural ministry said that blood tests of pigs from some 340 farms near the border with the North were negative. Fences and traps have been installed near farms to protect hogs from being infected by wild boars that roam the inter-Korean border.

The North's official Rodong Sinmun newspaper said quarantine efforts were focused on disinfecting farms and transport vehicles, restricting visitors, and banning the distribution of food products containing pork. Its references to nationwide quarantine efforts suggest the disease may have spread beyond regions near China.

Thailand and other countries still free of infections have taken strong preventive actions, including banning importation of pork, sausages, ham, or bacon.

Sorawit Taneeto, director-general of the Department of Livestock Development, urged people to cooperate with soldiers at checkpoints in border provinces and quarantine areas. Airports are using more dogs like beagles to help in luggage inspections.