African swine flu hits South Korea and Japan

South Korea reported its first cases of African swine flu, becoming the latest country hit by the disease that killed pigs from China and North Korea, driving up pork prices worldwide.

Five dead pigs found on a farm in Paju, a town near the Inter-Korean border, have been confirmed to be infected with the virus, said an official of the Ministry of Agriculture of Seoul.

Seoul Agriculture Minister Kim Hyun-soo said 3,950 pigs from three farms in Paju should be slaughtered.

The virus is not harmful to humans, but causes hemorrhagic fever in pigs, which is almost always fatal. There is no antidote or vaccine and the only known way to prevent the spread of the disease is to mass slaughter affected herd.

There are about 6,700 pig farms in South Korea and pig farming accounts for 40% of the total livestock industry.

In May, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization said pork prices rose as much as 50% in China and the Chicago stock market as a result of the outbreak.

In August, nearly 5m pigs in Asia died or were killed because of the spread of the disease.

Meanwhile, in Japan, authorities announced that they had slaughtered 753 pigs in Saitama Prefecture, north of Tokyo, after detecting a swine flu outbreak, the Yomiuri newspaper reported.

The slaughter was necessary after it was certified that the pigs raised at the prefecture for shipment to central Japan were infected. Saitama also decided to suspend shipments of two other pig farms in the outbreak area.

Last year, Japan confirmed the first swine flu outbreak in 26 years in the country. The fever was found on a farm in Gifu Prefecture in central Japan.

The fever detected in Japan is a different strain from the deadly African swine fever that China is facing, the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture said.

Japan is the world’s tenth largest producer of pork and exports about 12bn yen (US$111m) in pork products annually.

Sharing is caring!