#13,925
Over the past 7 days, no fewer than 7 northern Vietnamese Provinces have reported their first outbreaks of African Swine Fever, bringing the nation's total to 13 provinces in just under 3 weeks (see first ASF notification Feb 19th).
A week ago, Vietnam's Ministry of Agriculture (MARD) announced the detection of 200+ ASF Outbreaks Across 7 Provinces & Cities, but more recent media reports suggest the total number of outbreaks has more than tripled since then.While most of the outbreaks in Vietnam appear to be occurring in smallholdings at a village, commune, or household level, today's financial reports indicate the price of pork has dropped between 20%-30% across the country - including in the South of Vietnam where no outbreaks have been reported.
This (translated) report from the Business section of today's edition of the VNExpress.
Monday, 03.11.2019, 10:41 (GMT + 7)
Pork prices fell sharply after cholera spread to 13 provinces Africa
Pork prices are falling 8000-12000 dong per kilo and plunged even in the southern provinces even without any outbreak.
Many countries prohibit the entry of pork from Vietnam / Pork African cholera destruction still supported market prices / Enterprise-level drills African swine
Nam Dinh has become the 13th local pig cholera outbreak appeared in Africa after almost a month since first discovered in Hung Yen, Thai Binh. Earlier, the outbreak 12 provinces including Quang Ninh, Ninh Binh, Hung Yen, Thai Binh, Hai Phong, Thanh Hoa, Ha Nam, Hai Duong, Hanoi, Hoa Binh, Thai Nguyen and Dien Bien. More than 11 367 pigs were forced to destroy.
Previous speed and aggressive spread of disease, these days pork prices also go down. In the Southeast region, the price of pork dropped from 53,000 dong to 45,000 dong per kg compared to last week.
In the North, the price of pork down to much lower levels, particularly, in the provinces where the outbreak. Per kg of pork dropped 12,000 dong from the previous month while there where only 38000-42000 VND per kg, down 12,000 VND per kg compared with the previous month.
(Continue . . . )
The rapid rise in the number of reported locations suggests the virus has been spreading unreported for some time in Northern Vietnam. Meanwhile China - the likely conduit of the disease into Vietnam - has only reported one outbreak (in Guangxi) over the past 10 days.
While MOA ASF reports have been noticeably infrequent in recent weeks, China's dissident press and social media continue to report on (unverified) accounts of major pig die offs around the country (Google search 死猪).Given the porous borders, and the largely unregulated sale and transport of pigs in Southeast Asia, we should not be surprised to see ASF turn up in neighboring Laos and Cambodia, as the disease works its way south in Vietnam.
While ASF doesn't pose a direct threat to human health, its continued spread in Asia, Eastern Europe, and around the globe could certainly have adverse public health impacts.
As we've discussed often in this blog, food insecurity - whether due to disease, floods, droughts, or other causes - can bring on severe economic and societal challenges (see Iran: Bird Flu, Food Insecurity & Civil Unrest).Despite the recent drop of official reports from China, the recent flurry of reports from Vietnam combined with the real risk of seeing the disease spread to neighboring countries, makes the warning issued by the FAO six months ago ring a little truer with every passing day (see FAO: African Swine Fever (ASF) `Here to Stay' In Asia).
