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South China on alert over swine germ

China's far south is on high alert after one person was killed and three were infected by a pig-borne disease that has killed nearly 40 in the southwest, suggesting dangerous meat is being traded across the country.

The latest victim of the disease caused by the streptococcus suis bacterium had handled infected pork, Xinhua news agency said yesterday. The three infected patients, all butchers, also likely had contact with tainted meat.

"The Shenzhen patient was engaged in cutting and transporting frozen pork and chicken, while the other three were all butchers," Xinhua said on its English Web site, citing a report from the Shenzhen Daily.

The other infections were found in three areas of surrounding Guangdong Province, though Xinhua said in a separate report that no cases had been found among pigs in that province.

The central government said on Monday that it had the disease under control in Sichuan Province, the epicenter of the outbreak and China's top pork-producing region.

To contain the bacterium and other animal-borne diseases, China must focus more on animals, said Henk Bekedam, a World Health Organization representative for China.

"If you ... deal with human health issues only when it strikes people, I think you're already one step behind," Bekedam said. "You can never build a defense system if you only beef up the human side."

Most of the more than 200 people who have contracted the pig-borne bacterium became sick after slaughtering, handling or eating infected swine.

Weeks into the outbreak that has killed around 650 pigs in Sichuan, many poor farmers were apparently ignoring orders to dispose of sick and infected swine safely and were still butchering, eating and selling them, local media said.

But China's ministries of health and agriculture said on Sunday that a large outbreak of the disease in Sichuan had been brought under control.

An editorial in the official China Daily newspaper praised central and provincial authorities for their "timely response and thorough disclosure of the truth to the public" regarding the outbreak. It said officials had learned from mistakes they had made during an outbreak of SARS two years ago.

"A slow reaction and selective coverage worsened rather than improved the situation [in 2003]," the paper said. "The SARS nightmare is history, along with the old closed-door methods."
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