Only four southern provinces still blue ear free
By Ngoc Hung - The Saigon Times Daily
HCMC - Only four of the 25 southern provinces have stayed clear from the latest epidemic of blue-ear disease among pigs, according to the Department for Animal Health under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
Veterinary agencies of southern provinces at a meeting in HCMC on August 20 said that only Ninh Thuan, Binh Thuan, Tra Vinh and Bac Lieu provinces in the south were still free from the highly contagious disease. Nationwide, 24 provinces and cities have been hit by blue-ear disease.
Animal health officials at the meeting said they expected the disease to spread to the remaining provinces by the end of the month.
As of August 20, over 150,000 pigs had been infected, nearly 54,000 of which have been culled or died in the south. In the southeastern region, 14 provinces and cities have reported 99,000 sick pigs with almost 45,000 already culled or died.
Nguyen Xuan Binh, director of Zone 6’s Veterinary Agency, said usually blue-ear disease takes two months to run its course.
“The disease outbreak that emerged in southern provinces in late July would only show signs of abating around the end of September,” Binh said.
According to Binh, 150,000 pigs in these 14 south-east provinces would be affected before the epidemic is through. Approximately 100,000 would either die or be culled.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has issued a document on blue-ear disease prevention, banning the transport and sale of pigs and pig products in affected areas.
However, healthy pigs that test negative for blue-ear at large-scale hygienic livestock farms in affected areas would not be banned from transport and could be sold. Such pigs must be sent directly to assigned slaughterhouses while breeding stock would be sent for quarantine.
Long An Province in the Mekong Delta currently has only three affected districts with 6,000 sick pigs, including 1,800 culled. The number affected accounts for only 0.03% of the province’s pig herd.
“According to the ministry’s instruction, only healthy pigs from hygienic farms are allowed to be transported out of the province. There are 200,000 pigs in Long An, and we don’t know what to do with them because it is too many to be consumed locally,” an official of Long An Veterinary Agency said.
The Department for Animal Health proposed the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to reconsider the transport ban as small pig breeders stood to suffer the most.