Thai Pork Exporters Await to Rise if China Faces Major Crisis from African Swine Fever

The outbreak of African swine fever in China has been discovered in a new area of Wuxi, a city west of Shanghai, on Monday, September 3, 2018, raising the risk for farmers as the disease spreads rapidly in the world’s top pork producer.

This is the eighth outbreaks in China since early August. Five provinces have been affected: northeastern Liaoning, central Henan and the eastern provinces of Anhui, Jiangsu and Zhejiang. The total of 38,000 pigs have been culled in China after the infection to prevent the disease from spreading. However, a new case of disease still occurs regardless.

Considering the areas that the disease has occurred, they are very close to Shanghai, Municipality of China that has 24 million in population. While the major city in the affected area like Hangzhou in Zhejiang, Hefei in Anhui and Nanjing or Suzhou in Jiangsu have yet to report of the infection.

 

The transport of pigs and pork products was banned from and through Chinese provinces which have reported outbreaks of African swine fever, the most drastic measure taken so far, and one set to have major repercussions across the supply chain.

Meanwhile, live hogs from unaffected provinces cannot be transported through those that have reported infections, a move expected to significantly disrupt the country’s pig trade.

China is the world’s top pork producer, the number of culled pigs has not reach to the level of meat shortage, but if the disease continues to ravage Chinese farms, an import of meat from Thailand might be in consideration since the major hub is located in Zhejiang, Ningbo.

 

The virus is transmitted by ticks and direct contact between animals, and can also travel via contaminated food, animal feed and people moving from one place to another. There is no vaccine for the disease, but it is not harmful to humans.