Taiwan’s pork products could be sold to more countries if vaccinations against classical swine fever were no longer needed, Council of Agriculture (COA) Deputy Minister Huang Chin-cheng (黃金城) said on Saturday.
The World Organisation for Animal Health last year declared Taiwan proper, Penghu and Matsu free of foot-and-mouth disease without the need for vaccination, allowing the nation to begin exporting pork.
However, countries such as Japan still ban imports of pork products from areas with classical swine fever, including Taiwan.
Photo: Huang Shu-li, Taipei Times
To enable the nation to sell pork to more countries, the council said it is conducting a “no shots” project at more than 300 local farms.
At each farm, 16 to 24 porkets are not vaccinated against classical swine fever, but are raised with vaccinated pigs, it said, with the aim of observing whether the unvaccinated pigs become infected when they grow up, it said.
The first 3,000 “sentinel” pigs from 150 farms would soon be slaughtered, and no classical swine fever has so far been detected among them, Huang said.
The project would continue until June next year, and if everything goes smoothly, the council would evaluate whether to stop vaccinating all pigs against the virus, he said.
It is very difficult to eliminate classical swine fever, especially when it can spread to wild boars, he added.
Virus transmission is relentless among wild pigs, so it is impossible to stop vaccinations once they are infected, Huang said.
For more than a decade, no new cases of classical swine fever have been reported in Taiwan, and the fever has not been detected among wild pigs, a key factor allowing the council to initiate the “no shots” project, Huang said.
Once the nation is free of classical swine fever, its pork products could be sold worldwide, he said, expressing optimism over the prospect.
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