December 20, 2022

 

China's strategy for controlling ASF

It has been four years since African swine fever (ASF) swept the entire Chinese pig industry in 2018.

 

The Chinese government has since started the research and development of ASF vaccines. Unfortunately, uncertified vaccine products have also been circulating in the market, leading to worse repercussions as the ASF virus could not be completely eliminated.

 

Pig companies and farms with a strong awareness of disease control adopt a prevention approach. They have achieved positive results, which helped Chinese enterprises and authorities to form guidelines for preventing and controlling ASF.

 

There are four actions taken to fight ASF in Chinese farms: the first is to comprehensively upgrade epidemic prevention tools and establish three lines of defense; the second is the complete lockdown of an affected farm, strictly controlling, disinfecting and isolating the entry and exit of feed as well as providing medications to affected pigs; the third is to effectively monitor the safety of feed production and epidemic prevention, and the fourth is to improve China's epidemic prevention management system and strengthen responsibility in epidemic prevention.

 

Additionally, the Ministry of Agriculture divided the country into five regions and banned inter-region trading while also bolstering local slaughtering and processing capacities. Breeding and sales channels within each region were enhanced as well. This localisation of operation is the biggest change in the Chinese pig slaughtering industry.

 

In February 2021, China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs announced the completion of its first batch of 62 ASF-free communities. As of September 30, 2022, three batches of ASF-free community lists have been revealed and one of the main indicators is to show, through monitoring, that no ASF infection has occurred in the past 12 months.

 

Due to high evaluation criteria, selected pig farm communities belong to major pig companies — proof that these parties have succeeded in preventing ASF.

 

Over the past four years, China has a better understanding of ASF as it develops its prevention and control measures. Consequently, the country's pig breeding volume recovered to normal supply levels in 2021.

 

However, ASF has not completely left China; in fact, dealing with ASF is now a norm in the Chinese pig industry. The rapid elimination of pigs is a critical step to prevent fast spreading, and one careless move could mean the annihilation of an entire farm.

- Shi Tao, eFeedLink