Agricultural officials are urging the public to purchase only government-approved pork products as part of an effort to ensure proper sanitation standards in the meat industry.
The move comes after a weekend outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in a Taoyuan slaughterhouse and the subsequent destruction of five pigs found to be carrying the disease.
Council of Agriculture (COA, 農業會) inspectors detected the type-O virus during a routine inspection Sunday and sought to immediately contain the outbreak through a mandatory culling of the animals and widespread disinfection.
The news has the caught the attention of many consumers in Taiwan, where per capita pork consumption -- a staple of the Taiwanese diet -- surpasses 44kg annually.
According to Watson Sung (
The COA seal of approval, first introduced in July as part of a plan to stop pork products from illegal farms reaching the market, provides the date of slaughter and the slaughterhouse identification number.
The council recently stepped up inspections of pig factory farms, busting 10 illegal slaughterhouses islandwide since July. Sung encouraged the public to report illegal facilities to the COA and warned that lawbreakers would be dealt with severely, including fines and jail terms.
COA officials say illegal farms add to the FMD problem by selling sickly or dead pigs to markets, thereby helping to spread the disease.
Seeking to contain the outbreak, the council has instructed its National Animal Health Institute to conduct blood tests on the remaining pigs at the Taoyuan outbreak site as well as animals from nine other cities and counties -- sites suspected to be the origin of this outbreak.
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