Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Thai Thanh Quy: Focus more on preventing African swine fever

On the afternoon of October 4, the Provincial People's Committee held an online conference with districts, towns and cities in the province to evaluate the implementation results and deploy urgent solutions to prevent and control African swine fever in the province.

Co-chairing the conference were comrades: Phung Duc Tien - Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development; Thai Thanh Quy - Alternate member of the Party Central Committee, Deputy Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee. Also attending the conference were Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Dinh Viet Hong and Director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development Hoang Nghia Hieu.

Overview of the conference. Photo: Xuan Hoang

5.8% of total pig herd destroyed

According to the report of the Steering Committee for African Swine Fever Prevention and Control, African Swine Fever began to appear in Nghe An from March 13, 2019. By October 3, this epidemic had occurred in 12,661 households in 1,472 hamlets of 281 communes in 20 districts and towns. The total number of pigs infected with the disease was over 58,490 (accounting for 5.8% of the total herd). The total weight destroyed was over 2.6 million kg.There are currently 223 communes in 20 districts, towns and cities where the epidemic has not passed 30 days.

Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Thai Thanh Quy gave a speech at the conference. Photo: Xuan Hoang

After the African swine fever epidemic appeared in the province, the Provincial Party Committee, Provincial People's Committee, Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, departments, branches, information and communication, and authorities at all levels paid attention, directed, and drastically implemented solutions to prevent and control the epidemic. Localities from district to commune level mobilized the entire political system to participate.

The cause of the outbreak in Nghe An is determined to be small-scale farming, accounting for 88.8% of the total pig herd in the province, making it difficult to apply disease prevention and biosecurity measures in farming.

Comrade Phung Duc Tien - Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development spoke at the conference. Photo: Xuan Hoang

After storm No. 4, prolonged heavy rains caused flooding in low-lying districts such as Yen Thanh, Quynh Luu, Dien Chau, Hung Nguyen, causing pathogens from pig carcasses, waste from livestock, collection and slaughter facilities, unsafe pig burial pits, etc. to spread widely into the environment through water. In addition, many types of insects (flies, mosquitoes, ticks, gnats, rats, etc.) are intermediate factors in transmitting pathogens.

In addition, some localities are negligent in lacking drastic measures and have not thoroughly applied anti-epidemic solutions.

Mr. Nguyen Van Long - Deputy Director of the Department of Animal Health said that it is necessary to change the awareness of livestock farmers and localities to do a good job of spraying disinfectants so that the epidemic can be controlled. Photo: Xuan Hoang

By September, the provincial People's Committee had allocated 14.2 billion VND; districts and communes had proactively allocated 17.6 billion VND (not including funding to support pigs forced to be destroyed) to prevent the epidemic. The whole province had used 80 tons of disinfectant chemicals.

According to the Department of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine, the disease has spread widely, the number of pigs culled is large, localities have not done a good job of disinfecting and destroying pathogens at outbreaks, and the control of the transportation of pigs and pork products is lax and not strict. In addition, small-scale livestock farmers cannot apply biosecurity measures, combined with unfavorable weather conditions affecting the resistance of the pig herd. Therefore, the risk of African swine fever outbreaks in the near future is very high.

In June 2019, Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Thai Thanh Quy inspected the work of preventing African swine fever in some localities in the province. Photo courtesy of Xuan Hoang

At the conference, the localities of Yen Thanh, Dien Chau, Do Luong, Thanh Chuong, Que Phong, Hung Nguyen requested the province to support more chemicals for disinfection spraying and reserve budget. The province also needs to support more protective gear for pig culling; policies to encourage farmers in developing livestock farming. The Department of Animal Health is requested to guide the collection of samples for testing of sick pigs suitable for each stage.

Focus on epidemic prevention

Speaking at the conference, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Phung Duc Tien highly appreciated the participation of the Provincial Party Committee, Provincial People's Committee, departments and branches of Nghe An in directing and drastically implementing solutions to prevent and control the epidemic in the past time.

Destroying infected pigs in Yen Thanh district. Photo courtesy of Xuan Hoang

Deputy Minister Phung Duc Tien requested the Provincial People's Committee and district-level localities to continue to synchronously deploy urgent solutions to prevent and control African swine fever according to the directives of the Central Government and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. It is necessary to carry out epidemic prevention from the grassroots level, from the people and "fight the epidemic like fighting the enemy" in the spirit of the Prime Minister's direction. Currently, the most effective measure to prevent and control the epidemic is to use biosafety measures combined with biosafety products.

The veterinary sector needs to advise the Provincial People's Committee to apply some types of biosafety products to pig farming that have been effectively deployed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in some localities.

Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Phung Duc Tien

Receiving the instructions of Deputy Minister Phung Duc Tien, Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Thai Thanh Quy reminded departments, branches, districts, towns and cities that the weather in the coming time will be complicated, so the disease will continue to spread. To control the epidemic, he requested members of the Provincial Steering Committee for Epidemic Prevention to raise their responsibilities according to the assigned tasks. From now until the end of the year, localities will focus highly on epidemic prevention work, with the spirit of "fighting the epidemic like fighting the enemy".

Districts, wards and communes continue to promote propaganda and mobilize people to clean the environment in barn areas; localities continue to set up epidemic control checkpoints; strictly control slaughtering activities in the area.

Media agencies continue to promote propaganda about the harmful effects of the epidemic so that people understand and implement it. Political organizations continue to mobilize members to do a good job of epidemic prevention.