Hanoi (VNA) – Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc on September 11signed a document urging measures to be taken to prevent the African SwineFever (ASF) disease from entering Vietnam.

Accordingly, all forms of transporting, trading, slaughtering and consumingimported pork products without clear origin are prohibited.

The PM asked Chairpersons of the People’s Committees of centrally-run citiesand provinces to instruct people’s committees at lower levels, relevantdepartments and agencies to closely supervise at border gates, trails andborder areas people and vehicles entering Vietnam from countries hit by theASF.

The localities were urged to promptly detect and strictly punish any case ofillegally transporting animals and their products from foreign countries.

ASF is a tuple of infectious hemorrhagic fever which has a 90-100 percentmortality rate for pigs and there is no vaccine or cure.

Although the disease is not dangerous to humans, it can cause great economicloss for farmers and harm pork trading.

From the end of 2017 to September 10, 17 countries and regions in Europe andAsia such as China and Estonia have had ASF outbreaks, with over 560,000 pigsculled, according to the World Organisation for Animal Health.

From the start of August to September 10, China reported 14 outbreaks, with38,000 pigs culled. The disease is moving southward towards provinces nearVietnam.

ASF is spread from pig to pig through various ways, including animal feedcontaminated with the pathogen, carriers such as ticks, or direct contact betweeninfected pigs and healthy ones.

The incubation period is around four to 19 days, with symptoms including highfever, loss of appetite and hemorrhage. Sometimes, pigs can die even beforeclinical signs appear.

The structurally complicated ASF virus is very resilient and can persist inundercooked pork products or corpses, but they can be killed when exposed to 56degrees Celsius for 70 minutes, or 60 degrees Celsius, or with traditional sterilizationsubstances.

Dam Xuan Thanh, deputy head of the Department of Animal Health under theMinistry of Agriculture and Rural Development, said the disease is mostly transferredvia human actions.

The virus does not spread as quickly as classical swine fever or foot-and-mouthdisease viruses.

The trading of pork of unclear origin and transportation of untested pigs orpork products (via smuggling or gifts) can carry the disease from one countryto another, such as the case where a Korean airport detected the ASF virus infood brought from China, he added.

Nguyen Van Long, head of the Epidemiology Department of the Department ofAnimal Health, said at a conference on the disease held in HCM City onSeptember 11 that the only way to detect the disease is through testing samplesfrom pigs.

Authorities have been in instructed to strictly monitor pig farms for signs ofinfection, while pig farms can apply strict bio-safety regulations for farms,with frequent sterilization for farming equipment, barns and farmers, hesaid.-VNA