HONG KONG: Hong Kong has confirmed its second case of African swine fever, in a further sign that the virus is continuing to spread beyond mainland China, with the government ordering a cull of 4,700 animals.

The case of the disease, fatal to pigs but harmless in humans, was found in a slaughterhouse in the New Territories, bordering China's southern province of Guangdong, health chief Sophia Chan said late on Friday.

The slaughter house was closed from Friday night for disinfection. Hong Kong's first case was confirmed three weeks ago, prompting the government to order the cull of 6,500 pigs to prevent the spread of the virus.

The disease has spread to every province on the Chinese mainland since its initial detection in August 2018. On Friday, China said it had detected the virus in pigs being illegally transported to its southwestern province of Guizhou. </s> Hong Kong will cull 4,700 pigs after African swine fever was detected in an animal at a slaughterhouse close to the border with China, the second such case in a month in the crowded financial hub.

[HONG KONG] Hong Kong will cull 4,700 pigs after African swine fever was detected in an animal at a slaughterhouse close to the border with China, the second such case in a month in the crowded financial hub.

The animal came from a farm in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong and importation from mainland China has been suspended until further notification, Sophia Chan, Secretary of the city's Food and Health Department said Friday night.

The government-run slaughterhouse in Sheung Shui will be closed for cleansing and disinfection, she added.

Last month around 6,000 pigs were culled after the virus was detected in a pig imported from a farm in the same province. Supply from across the border was temporarily suspended for a week during the disinfection of slaughterhouse.

Pork is a staple of Chinese cuisine, with space-starved Hong Kong importing the majority of what it consumes from the mainland.

After African swine fever spread across more than half of China's provinces last year, Hong Kong banned imports from any Chinese farm where the virus had been detected.

Chinese officials have said hundreds of thousands of pigs were culled in a bid to stop its spread - an effort that has also seen restrictions on transporting pigs from affected areas.

With some of the world's most densely populated streets, Hong Kong remains on high alert to diseases. In 2003, some 300 people died during an outbreak of severe acute respiratory disease (SARS).

The virus is not dangerous to humans but is fatal to pigs and wild boar. </s> Second case of African swine fever found in pig in Hong Kong, sparking cull of 4,700 animals and closure of slaughterhouse </s> BEIJING (Reuters) - China said on Friday it had detected the African swine fever virus in pigs being illegally transported to southwestern Guizhou province.

A truck carrying 32 pigs from another province was stopped near the city of Duyun in Guizhou. One pig was already dead and another was sick, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said on its website.

The report comes as African swine fever, usually fatal to pigs but not harmful to people, spreads through China’s southern provinces after ravaging herds in the north last year. </s> – African swine fever has been reported in two new provinces - the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak and the southern province of Ca Mau, raising the total number of localities affected by the virus to 46.So far, the virus has resulted in some 1.85 million pigs being culled.On May 30, Thuy Le Vu, Vice Director of the Da Lak Sub-Department of Livestock and Animal Health, said the area’s first African swine fever outbreak was discovered at a farm in Hoa Phu commune of Buon Ma Thuot city.All 33 affected pigs were culled, he said, adding that 36 litres of chemicals were used to clean the farm. The city has strengthened inspection of transportation, slaughtering and trading of pigs in Hoa Phu commune, while applying measures to stop the disease spreading.After Gia Lai and Dak Nong, Dak Lak is the third Central Highlands locality affected by the disease.Meanwhile, Ca Mau reported the disease in two farms in Tan An Tay commune of Ngoc Hien district and Phu My commune in Phu Tran district.Measures have been rolled out to control the outbreak.Nguyen Thanh Huy, Director of the Sub-Department of Livestock and Animal Health of Ca Mau, said the province has set up 32 control stations to supervise the transport of pigs and pork into and out of the province.Huy said Ca Mau is home to about 75,000 pigs.-VNA </s> Stringent quarantine is needed to prevent African swine fever. June. 01, 2019 10:12. . 

African swine fever (ASF), which has rapidly spread across China since last August, has even entered North Korea. North Korea reported the outbreak of the swine fever to the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) Thursday, and cautioned residents against the disease through the state-run Rodong Sinmun on Friday.



ASF is a highly infectious disease for pigs and wild pigs, with its fatality rate of 100 percent. There is no vaccine or cure for the disease currently available, so affected animals must be culled. African swine fever cases were reported in regions of Africa and Europe in the 20th Century, but since it broke out in China last year, it has quickly spread to neighboring countries including Mongolia, Vietnam, and Cambodia. The disease is known to be spread through the movement of infected animals or the imports of affected pork products.



South Korea has been wary about the possible spread of the disease from North Korea through wild pigs that may traverse the inter-Korean border. The government convened an emergency meeting Friday to discuss countermeasures, and designated 10 cities and counties near the border including Ganghwa, Ongjin, and Paju as special management zones. Checkpoints and disinfection facilities will be installed in these areas, and enhanced measures will be put in place to prevent wild pigs from entering the regions.



The government should also keep an eye on the smuggling of livestock products, which is another way that the animal disease spreads. The swine fever virus does not affect people, but is strong enough to survive for years in chilled meat and frozen meat, and for months even after heated and dried. As of now, Chinese livestock products are not being imported into the country at all since they fail to meet the domestic quarantine standards, but it is still possible that processed foods made of infected ingredients can be carried in by individuals. Last year, 15 ASF virus genes were found in the food brought by a South Korean traveler who visited China.



North Korea’s help is needed for Seoul to monitor the situation in the North and share the moving paths of wild pigs. The government should closely cooperate with North Korea and international organizations to prevent the disease from crossing the border. Experts predict that one third of all pigs in China (around 130 million) will have to be culled in the future. With China being the largest producer and consumer of pork in the world, this would have a huge impact on the world’s meat market and the price of products. The government should meticulously examine whether the outbreak of the fever would deal a blow to ordinary people, and devise countermeasures. </s> South Korea's agriculture ministry on Friday said it will go all-out on efforts as an outbreak of African swine fever in is "highly likely" to hit the South.

reported the outbreak of the swine fever at a farm in its northern Jagang Province, which borders China, to the World Organization for Animal (OIE) on Thursday, reported.

Of the farm's 99 pigs, 77 died from the fever, and the rest were culled by the North Korean authorities, according to Seoul's agriculture ministry.

Although African swine fever is not harmful to people, it is fatal and highly infectious for pigs, with no cure currently available.

Since its outbreak in in August, the disease has spread to neighbouring countries like and

remains wary about the possible spread of the disease from through wild pigs that may cross the border.

"We have been already working closely with related organisations to cope with a possible outbreak of the swine fever in North Korea and enhanced efforts in the border areas," the agriculture ministry said.

Around 350 South Korean farms located near the border have been under close observation, according to the ministry.

Following the outbreak in the North, the ministry plans to conduct blood tests on pigs at the farms, with the results expected to come by June 7.

Fences are being installed at the farms to prevent potential contact between domestic and wild pigs as well.

measures will also be carried out at major roads in 10 cities and towns near the border, according to the ministry.

South Korea's unification ministry said it will seek ways to cooperate to stem the spread of African swine fever.

In November, the two Koreas held working-level talks on and agreed to share information on contagious diseases to combat and block the spread of contagious diseases across their border.

The Rodong Sinmun, the North's official newspaper, on Friday reported that is suffering from African swine fever which is "highly epidemic and very dangerous." It did not, however, mention the outbreak in the country. </s> A specialist in medical microbiology, Tore Midtvedt believes that the African swine fever virus can develop to infect humans, writes the Nationen

African swine fever is a dreaded disease that spreads between pigs. The virus has recently spread to Europe. The highly contagious disease is fatal to pigs, and there is no treatment or vaccine.

A specialist in medical microbiology and professor emeritus at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Tore Midtvedt, tells Nationen that he believes the virus behind the swine fever is so unstable that it can develop to infect humans.

“The swine fever virus seems to be more unstable. Viruses cannot multiply by themselves, it must multiply in the animal it infects. Then there is a mindset that the pig and man are so alike,” he says.

Currently wild boar are among the largest spreaders of swine fever. But the disease can also be spread by insects and birds. Feeding from infected food waste is the main cause of contamination and spreading of infection to new countries and continents. </s> TAIPEI -- In late 2002, when the SARS virus began spreading in southern China, health authorities there waited until February 2003 to report the then-unknown contagion to the World Health Organization. China's inadequate and less-than-transparent initial response provided ideal conditions for the respiratory virus to spread globally, ultimately infecting more than 8,000 people and killing more than 700 people in 37 countries.

The current rapid spread of African swine fever throughout China and to its neighbors appears to be following a similar narrative. And just as China bore the brunt of its mishandling of SARS -- recording the most infections and deaths -- it is poised to incur serious economic consequences from African swine fever that could last well into the next year or two, according to experts.

"There will be macroeconomic impacts from the disease, first and foremost," said Even Pay, an agricultural analyst at China Policy, a strategic advisory firm in Beijing. "It will make food prices -- not just pork but also chicken and eggs and anything that consumers might choose as an alternative protein -- more expensive for the next one to two years. The impacts of this will be felt disproportionately by the poor and middle class."

ASF, as the disease is known, was first reported in China last August and is now present in all of its administrative regions. The current crisis will also drive inflation, Pay said, creating a drag on the country's economy at a time when growth was already slowing.

Analysts at Nomura International said in a May note that China's consumer price index for April rose 2.5% year-over-year largely due to rising pork prices, and that they are expecting the CPI to rise by more than 3% in some of the coming months. China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs is projecting a 70% rise in the price of pork by the end of this year, which could be a conservative estimate.

Given China's outsized role in the global economy, the consequences of ASF are likely to ripple into international markets, as demand for pig feed, and thus commodity grain and oilseed imports, falls in China and as demand for meat rises, Pay said. Chinese consumers are already feeling the pinch, and will continue to do so.

"Though officially only produce and vegetable inflation is hitting the consumer, unofficially pork prices are being hit hard by the large decline in pig stocks," Christopher Balding, an associate professor at Fulbright University Vietnam, told the Nikkei Asian Review. "With pig stocks down more than 20% officially due to ASF and more than 40% unofficially, the lack of supply is pushing up pork prices, which is a major component of the CPI inflation basket, as it is the primary protein of Chinese consumers."

The scale of losses expected to hit China's $128 billion pork industry is staggering. Researchers at Rabobank are estimating that this year China will suffer a 30% loss in pork production as a result of ASF. To put that into perspective, that 30% loss in production is equivalent to Europe's entire annual pork supply, and almost 30% larger than U.S. annual pork production.

China slaughters 700 million pigs annually, and an estimated 150 million to 200 million pigs have been affected in the country since the outbreak was first reported. Rabobank's researchers are predicting that a combination of switching to other protein sources as well as increased pork imports from markets such as the U.S., Europe and Brazil will be insufficient to offset the loss, predicting a net supply gap of nearly 10 million metric tons this year.

China's pork difficulties have come at a particularly inopportune time for its Communist government, currently locked in a trade war with the U.S. that shows no sign of a quick resolution. Prior to the spread of ASF nationwide, China had slapped retaliatory tariffs of 62% on U.S. pork exports. Beijing is unlikely to remove those tariffs, as such a move would be perceived as a sign of weakness.

The U.S. pork industry has seen both opportunity and cause for worry as China grapples with the outbreak. U.S. hog futures rallied last autumn when news of the outbreak in China first broke, topping out in November and then bottoming in late February, before rebounding in March when China made large purchases of pork from the U.S.

China's tariffs on U.S. pork have been more or less mitigated by a drop in pork prices stateside. Dennis Smith, a broker analyst with Archer Financial Services in Chicago, told Nikkei that pork prices for many of the key primal cuts -- hams, loins and butts -- were trading at 10-year lows last autumn. In late February, ham prices were back to 10-year lows, with loin prices trading at historical all-time lows, he said.

"U.S. pork prices are still inexpensive from a historical standpoint," Smith said, noting that current pork production is at a record high.

In mid-May, Chinese buyers canceled an order for 3,247 metric tons of U.S. pork, the biggest cancellation in a year, with American news media framing it as another hit on the American farmer due to the trade war. The cancellation came shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to hit China with a new wave of tariffs in response to China's major last-minute revision of terms of a deal that could have de-escalated the conflict between the world's two largest economies.

Smith said the cancellation was likely just a "statement" by China. "They still need to import very large amounts of pork from Europe, as well as the U.S.," he said.

As SARS -- or severe acute respiratory syndrome -- demonstrated before, viruses know no borders, and African swine fever appears to have spread from China to many neighboring countries after likely entering from Russia, which has been dealing with the virus since 2007.

China's first ASF outbreak was reported in August of last year in the north eastern province of Liaoning, with fewer than 1,000 pigs culled and local officials declaring the outbreak contained. Two weeks later a second confirmed case was reported 2,000 km away, in the central province of Henan. Given cross-border trade, tourism and the potential for wild boars to spread the virus, it may have been inevitable that ASF would affect countries on China's borders.

Outbreaks have been confirmed in Vietnam, Cambodia and Mongolia, as well as the Chinese territory of Hong Kong, which administers its own economy. On Friday, North Korea confirmed an outbreak of ASF in a province bordering China, according to a report from South Korea's Yonhap News Agency.

The arrival of ASF has been especially painful in Vietnam, which has the highest per capita consumption of pork in the world followed by China.

Ironically, the virus was first reported in February, when Vietnam was celebrating the arrival of the year of the pig. By mid-March, outbreaks had been reported in the country's biggest pork-producing provinces and two million pigs had been culled by the end of May, at which point China had only officially reported culling one million, amid suspicions the actual number was much higher.

Rabobank is projecting that Vietnam, which in May mobilized its military in the fight against the disease, will lose 10% of its pork production.

Vietnam has not blamed China for its outbreaks, but it appears likely that its giant northern neighbor was the source of the virus. Speaking with the press in March, officials in Hanoi said that despite there having been outbreaks in Yunnan and Guangxi, the two Chinese regions that border Vietnam, "it is very difficult to identify the source of infection happening in Vietnam." Despite the cautious language, Vietnamese scientists have determined that virus samples from Vietnam and China were identical.

Both Japan and Taiwan have discovered cases of the ASF virus within their borders, while successfully preventing outbreaks, at least so far.

In April, Japan's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries reported that tourists had brought infected sausages into the country from China. Prior to that, Taiwanese authorities reported the discovery of three infected pig carcasses that had washed up on the shores of the Taiwan-controlled island of Kinmen, which lies 5 km off of China's south eastern coast. Visitors flying into mainland Taiwan are subject to luggage searches and hefty fines if they are found to be bringing in pork products.

Elsewhere in Asia, South Korea, Thailand, Myanmar and Laos are on high alert for possible outbreaks.

China faces a major challenge in containing and eradicating the disease. Management of ASF requires extremely strict control of pig feed to exclude any infected material, eradication of wild boar as a route of transmission, and rapid diagnosis, slaughter and disposal of all animals where an outbreak is reported, as well as complete disinfection and deinsectization of a farm.

Once under control, one of the biggest outcomes of China's ASF epidemic will be a restructuring of its pig farming sector, Pay said. "Just about the only way for farmers and companies to guarantee they can eradicate the disease on their farms is going to be vertical integration," she said.

Pay explained that companies will need to breed their own piglets and likely produce their own feed, and staff may be required to live on-site to ensure their livestock are not coming into contact with outside pigs at home. Transportation will need to be strictly controlled.

"China's pig farms have already scaled up a lot in the past five years due to environmental regulatory pressure pushing smaller and less professionalized players out," she said. "Efforts to control this disease will do the rest."

That could lead to changes at the dinner table as well. Chinese consumers have long placed a premium on fresh pork that has not been frozen, Pay said. As a result, live pigs are often shipped long distances to slaughterhouses nearer to demand centers -- sometimes thousands of kilometers from the farm.

"This practice will be incredibly costly or maybe even impossible, in the context of ASF prevention and control," she said. "Controlling the disease might even shift this practice, and in the longer term, the preference for never-frozen meat may change."
Hong Kong confirms its second case of African swine fever, indicating the virus continues to spread beyond mainland China. Sheung Shui slaughterhouse is temporarily closed while 4,100 animals are culled from the facility.