Nghe An urgently prevents African swine fever

The meeting was held online under the chairmanship of comrades: Dinh Viet Hong - Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee; Hoang Nghia Hieu, Director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural DevelopmentPhoto: Phu Huong

The disease can spread quickly and is complicated.

Nghe An is a locality with a small, fragmented pig farming industry that accounts for a large proportion compared to the whole country. The whole province has nearly 900,000 pigs, ranking 5th in the country. Of which, there are 120 concentrated pig farms with 103,345 pigs; accounting for 11.2% of the total pig herd; mainly household farming with 295,598 households, nearly 646,800 pigs; accounting for 70.3% of the total pig herd of the whole province.

Currently, the whole province has only 56 centralized slaughterhouses, the rate of pigs brought to centralized slaughterhouses accounts for 20% of the total number of pigs slaughtered in the province; there are over 1,000 family slaughterhouses slaughtering 1-3 pigs/day and night.

While the pig farming industry in the province has many factors that can increase the risk of disease transmission, there are 7 provinces in the country with pigs infected with the disease, more dangerously, there has been an outbreak in Yen Dinh district, Thanh Hoa province - a locality bordering Nghe An. The epidemic is spreading, the development is very complicated, the risk of disease threatening pig farming in Nghe An is very high.

Faced with that reality, recently, Nghe An has implemented measures to prevent African swine fever from entering the area.

Comrade Dinh Viet Hong - Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee requested localities to have proactive plans in epidemic prevention. Photo: Phu Huong

Proactive response and prevention

At the meeting, after listening to the report on the epidemic situation and solutions to prevent African swine fever from the leaders of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Veterinary Department of Region III and the People's Committees of districts, cities and towns in the province, Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Dinh Viet Hong emphasized: Nghe An province has not yet had an outbreak of African swine fever, but in the coming time, the risk of the disease may occur and spread widely due to the province's livestock farming characteristics, the diverse transmission routes of the disease, making it very difficult to control the disease.

To proactively respond, prevent and promptly handle African swine fever from entering the area, the People's Committees of districts, cities, towns, relevant departments and branches are required to seriously implement Directive No. 04/CT-TTg dated February 20, 2019 of the Prime Minister, Directive No. 07/CT-UBND dated February 22, 2019 of the People's Committee of Nghe An province, Decision No. 5817/QD-UBND dated December 28, 2018 of the People's Committee of Nghe An province, on promulgating the Action Plan for emergency response to African swine fever in Nghe An province.

Officers of the Northern Nghe An Animal Quarantine Station spray disinfectant on vehicles transporting pigs through Hoang Mai town. Photo: Thanh Yen

When there is no epidemic, it is necessary to propagate and instruct breeders to implement biosecurity measures; prepare conditions to proactively fight the epidemic in case an epidemic occurs.

Synchronously implement solutions to control pig herds in the area, detect epidemics early for treatment, and contain the outbreak in a small area. In handling outbreaks, it is necessary to seriously implement technical measures recommended and specifically instructed by the Veterinary Department.