Three ASF outbreaks reported in Vietnam
Three farms in the northern provinces of Thai Binh and Hung Yen, Vietnam, were declared ASF infected, according to news agency Xinhuanet. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has directed the culling of all infected pigs as the first measure to stop the virus from spreading. Transport, slaughtering, and distribution of pork from AFS-hit areas are under tight monitoring by competent agencies and a mass examination of the farms in this area is going to be launched.
Pork accounts for 65% of the meat consumed by the Vietnamese and most of the pork for the 30 million farm-raised pigs is consumed domestically. Vietnam is one of the countries that was included in a group of 9 to participate in the emergency meetings hosted by UN's Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) to stop the disease spreading from China to other ASEAN countries such as Cambodia, Japan, Laos, Mongolia, Myanmar, the Philippines, South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam. At that time, Wantanee Kalpravidh, regional manager of the FAO Emergency Centre for Transboundary Animal Diseases (ECTAD) in Asia considered the situation critical in case that swine fever would jump the border in other countries.
Nevertheless, a large visitor's flow between China and Vietnam along with smuggling pork networks in the northern part of the country has led to the current situation. On February 19, China reported an ASF outbreak in Guangxi Autonomous Region, which borders Vietnam in southern China. 924 pigs from two farms were killed by the virus, according to China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.
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