Eighteen of the country’s 31 administrative regions have recently registered new cases of this disease, with special incidence in Liaoning (northeast), Shandong (east), Hebei (north) and Shanxi (north).
Several areas of China are facing outbreaks of African swine fever, which can reach up to 100% mortality among pigs and which, between 2018 and 2019, devastated the country’s meat production.
According to the local Sohu news portal, 18 of the country’s 31 administrative regions have recently registered new cases of this disease, with special incidence in Liaoning (northeast), Shandong (east), Hebei (north) and Shanxi (north).
According to the World Organization for Animal Health, There is currently no effective vaccine against the disease.. Sohu revealed that China is developing a vaccine, but it will not be available before the end of the year.
African swine fever is a highly contagious hemorrhagic disease that can kill pigs and wild boars within the first ten days after contracting the infection.
Different estimates indicate that the country lost more than 130 million pigs in the first wave of the illness
This had inflationary effects worldwide, since China is the country that consumes the most pork. Disruptions in national supply chains therefore imply a reshuffling of global protein markets and rising prices.
During the 2018/2019 wave, the Chinese authorities authorized the Portuguese slaughterhouses Maporal, ICM Pork and Montalva to export to the country. Access to the largest market in the world was seen by Portuguese producers as the “most important” event for national pig farming “in the last 40 years”.
African swine fever spreads to Tibet and Xinjiang
Bloomberg estimates suggest China lost nearly half its pigs during the latest large-scale outbreak of the disease, which is harmless to humans and other animals. Analysts cited by the agency forecast that the current outbreak could make the Asian country lose between 8% and 15% of their pork production.
Source: Observadora
