China’s hog supply and prices are stable, said an agriculture ministry official on Friday, as deadly African swine fever reached the capital Beijing for the first time.
The ministry had said earlier in the day that the disease had been found on two farms in the city’s southwest district of Fangshan. The disease will not impact supplies in the city, said Feng Zhongwu, chief of the animal husbandry and veterinarian bureau under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.
China has so far confirmed 73 cases of African swine fever in 20 provinces, including the latest two outbreaks in Beijing, Feng told a press briefing.
That has led to the culling of 600,000 pigs as of Nov. 22, he said. Beijing has issued strict bans on transporting pigs out of provinces and regions infected with the disease, which has led to an excess of supply in some areas and shortages in others.
Feng said China will facilitate the transport of piglets while controlling for risk of spreading African swine fever.
China will also facilitate slaughtering hogs near the impacted areas to relieve pressure on farms with growing herds that cannot be moved to places with higher demand.
VIRUS ORIGINS
Forty-six percent of all outbreaks investigated so far have been caused by people or vehicles spreading the disease, Huang Baoxu, deputy director of the China Animal Health and Epidemiology Center, told reporters. And 23 cases have been caused by feeding kitchen waste to pigs, he said.
The centre had not yet found any contaminated feed supplies, Huang later told Reuters.
The virus found in a wild boar in the far north is a different strain to the one found in domestic pigs, Huang also told reporters, and warned that there are rising risks of the new strain being transmitted to farm-raised pigs.
