African swine fever is 'cooling down'

According to Mr. Ngo Duc Quynh - Deputy Head of the Department of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine, from October 17 to November 5, African swine fever in Nghe An has "cooled down".

For the past half month, every day the whole province has only had 100-200 pigs infected with the disease and had to be destroyed. Meanwhile, from the beginning of September to the first half of October, Nghe An destroyed thousands of pigs every day.

Mr. Ngo Duc Quynh - Deputy Head of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Department

Que Phong district maintains a livestock disease control checkpoint on National Highway 48. Photo: Xuan Hoang

Dien Chau district is a locality with 29 communes where the epidemic has not passed 30 days. Mr. Nguyen Trong Bon - Head of the district's Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Station said that for the past 10 days, the number of pigs infected with the disease every day has been very low, there are days when no commune reports infected pigs.

Similarly, in Yen Thanh district, from mid-October until now, every day there are several pigs reported infected by the local authorities. That shows that the epidemic has decreased compared to before.

Localities continue to deploy more synchronous epidemic prevention solutions; especially people have higher awareness in epidemic prevention work.

People proactively prevent African swine fever. Photo courtesy of Xuan Hoang

However, there is a high risk of re-epidemic in many localities, because the price of pork is increasing, causing people to rush to increase their herds without sufficient biosafety conditions in disease prevention. According to a survey, in early November, the price of pork in Nghe An increased from 60,000 - 62,000 VND/kg, and is expected to be higher until the end of the year.

As of November 5, Nghe An still has 314 communes with the epidemic not passing 30 days. The number of pigs culled is 79,249. Some localities have many communes with the epidemic: Dien Chau, Yen Thanh, Do Luong, Que Phong...