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.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to