Four local Chinese officials have been fired for failing to dispose properly of infected pigs amid efforts to stop the spread of a swine-borne disease that has killed 39 people, a newspaper reported yesterday.
Li Mingzhong, chief of the Animal Husbandry and Food Bureau in Sichuan province's Zizhong county, allegedly claimed that carcasses of 78 dead pigs were properly disposed of when they had not been, the China Daily newspaper reported.
The government has ordered stringent anti-disease measures in Sichuan, where 208 people have been stricken since June by an illness blamed on streptococcus suis, a bacteria carried by pigs.
Li and three colleagues were accused of failing to verify that the pigs had been safely buried deep underground and trying to deceive investigators, the China Daily said.
It identified the other officials as Liu Wei, head of the county animal epidemic prevention and supervision station, Jiang Xiaogang, who is deputy chief of the same station and Chen Bin, chief of the animal husbandry and veterinary station in the town of Taiping.
One person infected by the disease died Saturday, bringing the death toll to 39, the worst outbreak in the region in recent years.
The World Health Organization has urged Chinese health authorities to conduct more tests since experts say it is highly unusual for so many people to fall sick and die suddenly from the disease.
Some 208 people have become ill since June in dozens of villages and towns in Sichuan province, a major pig-raising region, according to China's Health Ministry. Most were farmers who butchered or handled sick pigs.
Fifteen people remain in critical condition.
No person-to-person infections have been reported.
Symptoms of the disease include high fever, nausea and vomiting, followed by meningitis, hemorrhaging under the skin, toxic shock and coma in severe cases.
Some patients also suffered organ failure.
Chinese health officials say that the strain is extremely virulent and killed one farmer in as little as two hours.
But they have assured the public the disease was under control.
Beijing was criticized in 2003 for being reticent about sharing information on its first outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which emerged from the country's south and killed nearly 800 people around the globe.
Emergency notices were issued this week by the central government ordering tighter controls on the slaughter and sale of pigs to curb the spread of the streptococcus suis bacteria.
Officials and farmers who fail to obey have been threatened with severe punishment.
News reports last week said some officials were dismissed after failing to enforce a ban on the export of pork from affected areas of Sichuan.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS