August 24, 2018

China culls over 14,000 pigs in latest African swine fever outbreak

Lianyungang city in China's Jiangsu province, the latest to be hit by African swine fever, has culled over 14,500 pigs as part of an effort to contain the disease, according to a report by Agence France-Presse.

The government of Lianyungang, which is about 500 kilometers north of Shanghai, said it had culled that number of swine by Monday night in a quarantined area.

Lianyungang was the area hit by the third outbreak of ASF within the month of August. Last Sunday, Aug. 19, the city reported that 88 hogs died of the disease.

It added that four million other pigs in the city had been inspected but that they were found to have no other abnormalities, the report said.

In May the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) warned about the risk of the spread of African swine fever from Russia.

China's first case of the ASF was reported on Aug. 3 in Shenyang, the capital of Liaoning province, which has culled more than 8,000 hogs.

African swine causes haemorrhagic fever in pigs that almost always ends in death within a few days.