August 22, 2007

"Impossible" disease caused deaths of millions of pigs in China

Although local authorities may have been guilty of cover-ups of the blue ear disease currently sweeping through 26 provinces in China, it is impossible that the disease could have killed millions or tens of millions of pigs as reported in the media, Jia Youling, chief veterinary officer at the Ministry of Agriculture said (Aug 21).

Jia insisted there was no cause for panic and reiterated that the highly infectious blue-ear pig disease has killed 68,000 pigs across China and led to another 175,000 being slaughtered.

Jia said panic was caused because most people had not known it was blue-ear disease and had no idea how to deal with it.

Western reports have disputed the figures, citing the sharp rise in pork prices seen across the country as evidence. Pork prices in June were almost double that of the same time last year.

Jia said that an effective blue ear vaccine had been developed and distributed to the regions most seriously hit, and that the spread of the disease was now under "preliminary control", with more than 100 million pigs vaccinated.

A China-based adviser to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, Guo Fusheng, told Western press that the disease posed no danger to humans since there has never been a known record of it occurring even in other countries since the disease emerged two decades ago.