Latest case was found in a slaughterhouse where 30 pigs died of the disease.

August 16, 2018

3 Min Read
Second case of ASF found in China
China Photos/Getty Images

Source: Swine Health Information Center
The Swine Health Information Center has issued an alert Aug. 16 of news that China has reported its second case of African swine fever. The case was found in a slaughterhouse in the city of Zhengzhou in the Henan province. The pigs came from the Tangyuan district in the city of Jiamusi, in the Heilongjiang province. This latest location is 500 miles to the northeast of the first reported infected herd, detected two weeks ago.

According to the Swine Health Information Center, the distance from the source farm to the slaughterhouse is about 1,400 miles, and the trip route goes through areas with high pig density. The slaughterhouse is a large facility owned by Shuanghui, part of the WH Group, the world’s largest pork producer.

According to SHIC and wire reports, Chinese government officials are moving quickly to isolate the disease. The slaughter facility has been closed with a no movement zone within a radius of about 6 miles and a zone of 2 miles for destroying all pigs.

This latest outbreak raises concern about the status of ASF in China. The distance between the original detection in Shenyang and the newly identified farm and the slaughterhouse shows that the disease is being transported widely. The areas of concern now involve several Chinese provinces and heightens the likelihood of further cases, according to SHIC.

NHF-ASF-Map-081618.jpg

LONG TRIP: The latest animal detected with African Swine Fever made this trip from farm to slaughterhouse – going more than 1,400 miles through areas with high pig populations. (Map: Swine Health Information Center)

The Chinese press is reporting that the outbreak started as early as April. SHIC provided a partial translation of the early press reports noting that the first ASF case was officially confirmed Aug. 3 on a small farm in the Shenbei District, Shenyang City, Liaoning province.

The report noted that further investigation indicates that the owner of the ASF index farm purchased 45 pigs in early July from a farm located in the Hunnan District, Shenyang city, Liaoning province. Fecal samples collected from the source farm were confirmed ASFV RNA positive by PCR.

Wang — the owner of the source farm — told China News that the last entry of pigs onto the farm occurred in March. There were 100 pigs purchased from Chuanying District, Jilin city, Jilin province. In April, some pigs started to become sick and then died on the Wang farm. Wang did not report the abnormal pig death; instead the remaining live pigs were sold to the Zhang farm in Shenyang, and other people. So far, all of the pigs initially from the Wang farm have been tracked and culled.

China News reports that Wan was held in a detention center due to violation of the law.

ASF is a highly contagious hemorrhagic disease of pigs that produces a wide range of clinical signs and lesions that closely resemble those of classical swine fever. The disease moved into Georgia in the Caucasus region in Eastern Europe and has been spreading through Russia. Reuters has reported that the pigs from this latest find could have been sourced near Russia.

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