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Despite China's recent silence on African Swine Fever - reporting only one outbreak in the past 27 days - Taiwan authorities continue to interdict ASF positive food products being brought into the country from China.
We've seen similar reports over the past few months from Japan, Australia, and South Korea. On Friday, in what may prove an escalation of the crisis, Taiwan reported ASF Positive Pork Products Brought In By Passengers From Vietnam.In January Taiwan reported ASF contaminated pig carcasses - apparently dumped into rivers in Eastern China - floating onto the beaches of some of their islands near the Mainland.
Today we've reports from Taiwan, and Mainland China, that suggest the level of ASF contamination of China's food supply continues to rise.
First, Taiwan's BAPHIQ (Bureau of Animal Plant Health Inspection & Quarantine) has announced that 3 more food products - intercepted at their airport from arrivals from China - have tested positive for the virus.
Since November, the detection rate has risen from just over 1% in November, to over 9% thus far in February.While the sampling size is small, the trend suggests that more and more contaminated pork is entering China's food chain. ASF does not present a human health risk, but there are serious concerns over contaminated food products helping spread the virus to new areas.
Continued monitoring at the border, and 3 cases of African swine fever virus genes were detected in Chinese mainland pork products.
The Central Hunger Disaster Response Center of Africa has said that three cases of African swine fever virus genes have been detected in pork products in mainland China, totaling 25 cases, one in October, one in October, and two in November. 4 cases in December, 11 cases in January, and 7 cases in February; the positive rates were 0% (0/165) in September, 0.6% (1/155) in October, and 1.1% in November. (2/186), 2.2% (4/184) in December, 6.2% (11/176) in January, and 9.3% (7/75) in February. The detection rate is still on the rise.
- According to the Strain Center, the 23rd case was arrived at Kaohsiung flight on Hong Kong by Hong Kong Dragon Airlines on January 25 to pick up the dried pork dumplings (three squirrels from Jiangsu Province) and sent them to the Kaohsiung Airport Quarantine Station of the Kaohsiung Branch of the Anti-inspection Bureau.
- The 24th case was collected by the Golden Gate Quarantine Station of the Kaohsiung Branch of the Bureau from the Shuitou Pier abandonment box on February 5 to the pig head scorpion produced in Shantou City, Guangdong Province;
- The 25th case was the Taipei Port Quarantine Station of the Keelung Branch of the Bureau. On February 6th, the dried pork was collected from the abandoned box and abandoned by the Pingtan, Taiwan, Linalina passengers.
The three samples were confirmed by the Institute of Animal Husbandry, and the sequence of the gene fragment was 100% similar to the gene fragment of the African swine fever virus strain in mainland China, indicating that the passengers brought the pork products from mainland China back to China and spread the risk of African swine fever. high.
The Strain Center appeals to the public to travel abroad without carrying animal and plant products, especially meat, and not to buy foreign meat products for delivery to Taiwan. Offenders will be severely punished.
Next, adding weight to the idea that China's food supply is increasingly affected by ASF, yesterday China's financial pages carried the following report:
Sanquan frozen dumplings tested African swine fever virus
2019-02-16
China's Sanquan brand frozen dumplings were detected by the relevant authorities in Hunan Province. The news came out that the company's share price fell sharply on Friday.
According to the Beijing News and other Chinese media reports on Friday, the frozen soup dumplings produced by Sanquan Food Co., Ltd. were recently spot-checked by the relevant authorities of Hunan Xiangxi Autonomous Prefecture to detect African swine fever virus. but. The report quoted Sanquan Foods after-sales customer service as saying that the company did not receive formal notice from the authoritative department, and the products all have qualified test reports. The staff of Sanquan Purchasing Department also said that the company will test the nucleic acid of African swine fever virus for each batch of pork.
Sohu.com quoted a food industry analyst on Saturday as saying that once the authoritative department confirmed the above news, Sanquan Food will face a triple test: the short-term frozen dumpling products will be largely removed; in the medium term, the trust of Sanquan Food will be Declining, market share will be replaced by other frozen dumpling brands; in the long run, the damage impact of Sanquan’s goodwill will be long-term. Analysts said that this is why the incident has not been released until now.
At the close of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange on Friday afternoon, Sanquan Foods fell 3.58%.
Editor: Wu Jing
While the recent drop in farm outbreaks reported by China's MOA is ostensibly good news, there are growing concerns over how reflective these reports are of the situation on the ground.
In the past we've seen China's farmers resort to `midnight dumping' of sick or dead pigs and poultry, rather than reporting the incident to the appropriate authorities, which might invite unwanted scrutiny and the likely culling of all of their livestock.
- In February 2016 several badly decomposed chicken carcasses were found on local beaches of Hong Kong (presumably dumped upstream the Pearl River in Guangdong Province) that tested positive for the avian H5 virus (see Hong Kong: Another H5N6 Positive Chicken Carcass).
- In previous years (2009-2012) we'd seen numerous similar reports - albeit with the H5N1 virus - of badly decomposed poultry carcasses washing up on the beaches of Hong Kong.
- But perhaps most famously, in 2013 - in Shanghai Govt.: Thousands Of Dead Pigs Retrieved From River - we saw reports of as many as 3,000 pig carcasses dumped in the Huangpu river - a tributary of the Yangtze - that provides many of the 23 million residents of Shanghai with their drinking water.
Jiangsu Guanyun 68 dead pigs abandoned the river ditch 20 people were charged
2019-02-17 16:59:21 Source: 澎湃News (Shanghai)
The "Jiangsu Guanyun 68 dead pigs abandoned the river ditch" incident has made the latest progress. On February 15th, the Propaganda Department of Jiangsu Guanyun County Committee responded to the news that the test was negative for the samples sent for inspection, and the African pigs were excluded. The county environmental protection department collected and analyzed the water samples of the abandoned ditch, which met the irrigation water quality standards.
On February 12, some local villagers in Guanyun saw that a large number of dead pigs were dropped in the village of Danggou, Nangang Township, and the video was sent to the social platform, causing concern.(Continue . . . )
ASF related or not, `midnight dumping' remains one of China's big challenges in tracking, and hopefully containing, animal diseases like African Swine Fever, FMD, and avian flu.