Many frugal farmers in southwest China are refusing to bury infected pigs safely, Chinese media said yesterday, raising fears that a deadly swine flu could spread further after infecting almost 200 people and killing 36.
Draconian measures were in place around the Chinese capital to prevent infection. The Beijing News said city authorities had blocked inward shipments of about 4,000 tonnes of pork and pork products from stricken Sichuan Province up to July 31.
Many impoverished Sichuan farmers, having already bought piglets, inoculation and feed, are refusing to spend more on burying sick pigs with disinfectant. Instead, they slaughter them and eat the meat themselves.
"Households are not following guidelines in dealing with sick and dead pigs to prevent possible harm," the Beijing News said.
Asked whether her family had followed government orders to dispose of their sick pigs, the wife of farmer Liu Yanxue in Sichuan's hard-hit Zizhong County reportedly told state television: "At any rate, we didn't eat them."
Zizhong health worker Wen Youhai had admitted to simply taking farmers' word that they had properly handled sick pigs rather than observing burials in person, the daily said.
The Health Ministry Web site, in its latest bulletin, said two deaths and 17 infections with pig-borne bacteria Streptococcus suis had been reported between Sunday and midday Monday in Sichuan.
Health officials insist the outbreak is under control and that the latest victims represented previously undiagnosed cases, not new cases which would indicate the disease was spreading.
A total of 198 people in 108 villages and townships in Sichuan had contracted the disease, apparently from slaughtering, handling or eating infected pigs, the ministry said.
The official China Youth Daily published a picture of a stall owner in Ziyang city, where the disease was first reported in June, selling pork at a traditional market. The headline read: "Ziyang residents dare to sell pork again."
In one unconfirmed report, the Chongqing Evening News said last week an unscrupulous meat dealer had dug up sick and dead pigs he was forced by police to bury a day earlier and sold the meat in a nearby town for a big profit.
Sichuan has launched a campaign to educate illiterate farmers and their children not to slaughter or eat sick pigs.
The government has also vowed to punish officials caught covering up or delaying reports on infections. Two officials and one health inspector have already been sacked for negligence.
While most of the infections have been found in Sichuan, cases have also been reported in Guangdong Province and neighboring Hong Kong. Shipments of pork from Sichuan, China's top producer, to Hong Kong have been stopped and the city has stepped up inspections and quarantine procedures on all live pigs and frozen pork imported from the mainland.
Hong Kong health experts have confirmed the bacteria as Streptococcus suis and found no evidence of any mutation, the South China Morning Post said.
The capital's health authorities also issued guidelines on the detection and prevention of the disease, which has been identified as streptococcus suis bacteria, the newspaper said. They include setting up a notification mechanism on the epidemic between health and agriculture authorities, the tightening of surveillance on suspected cases and more stringent inspection of pork and pork products.
Illegal butchering is also banned while restaurants are forbidden from buying and serving pork that has not been quarantined, it added.
Experts say butchering and eating infected pork is the only way for humans to catch the disease.
Meanwhile, authorities in Sichuan have begun to manufacture large quantities of vaccine for swine, with an initial batch of between 700,000 to 800,000 doses produced so far, Xinhua news agency said. All the vaccines for pigs will be "strictly checked" by the ministry of agriculture before they are released on the market, it said.
Another Xinhua report quoted unnamed health officials as saying that no vaccines have yet been developed for humans.
The bacteria is endemic in Asia, North America and Europe, with the first recorded human case in Denmark in 1968. More than 200 cases of human infection have been reported globally since then, not counting the latest outbreak.
The epidemic has so far affected 155 villages in seven cities in Sichuan.
LANDMARK CASE: ‘Every night we were dragged to US soldiers and sexually abused. Every week we were forced to undergo venereal disease tests,’ a victim said More than 100 South Korean women who were forced to work as prostitutes for US soldiers stationed in the country have filed a landmark lawsuit accusing Washington of abuse, their lawyers said yesterday. Historians and activists say tens of thousands of South Korean women worked for state-sanctioned brothels from the 1950s to 1980s, serving US troops stationed in country to protect the South from North Korea. In 2022, South Korea’s top court ruled that the government had illegally “established, managed and operated” such brothels for the US military, ordering it to pay about 120 plaintiffs compensation. Last week, 117 victims
China on Monday announced its first ever sanctions against an individual Japanese lawmaker, targeting China-born Hei Seki for “spreading fallacies” on issues such as Taiwan, Hong Kong and disputed islands, prompting a protest from Tokyo. Beijing has an ongoing spat with Tokyo over islands in the East China Sea claimed by both countries, and considers foreign criticism on sensitive political topics to be acts of interference. Seki, a naturalised Japanese citizen, “spread false information, colluded with Japanese anti-China forces, and wantonly attacked and smeared China”, foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian told reporters on Monday. “For his own selfish interests, (Seki)
Argentine President Javier Milei on Sunday vowed to “accelerate” his libertarian reforms after a crushing defeat in Buenos Aires provincial elections. The 54-year-old economist has slashed public spending, dismissed tens of thousands of public employees and led a major deregulation drive since taking office in December 2023. He acknowledged his party’s “clear defeat” by the center-left Peronist movement in the elections to the legislature of Buenos Aires province, the country’s economic powerhouse. A deflated-sounding Milei admitted to unspecified “mistakes” which he vowed to “correct,” but said he would not be swayed “one millimeter” from his reform agenda. “We will deepen and accelerate it,” he
Japan yesterday heralded the coming-of-age of Japanese Prince Hisahito with an elaborate ceremony at the Imperial Palace, where a succession crisis is brewing. The nephew of Japanese Emperor Naruhito, Hisahito received a black silk-and-lacquer crown at the ceremony, which marks the beginning of his royal adult life. “Thank you very much for bestowing the crown today at the coming-of-age ceremony,” Hisahito said. “I will fulfill my duties, being aware of my responsibilities as an adult member of the imperial family.” Although the emperor has a daughter — Princess Aiko — the 23-year-old has been sidelined by the royal family’s male-only
RSS