China confirmed cases of African swine fever in the northern province of Liaoning. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs reported in a statement published on its website on Monday that several villages in Yingkou city suffered from the fever outbreak killing 93 pigs and infecting 334.
Reports of several cases of the disease were recorded since its first outbreak in the Shenyang province on August. According to the Chinese customs, the outbreak caused China to implement banning of imported pigs, wild boars, and other products from Bulgaria after the African swine fever spread in the European country.
China's General Administration of Customs released a statement dated September 28 on its official WeChat account that they are ordering the recall and destruction of the products coming from Bulgaria. The statement also said that the country bans visitors from bringing in pigs, wild boars, from the European country and they will seal the products on board any transport vehicles passing through China.
Bans are also implemented on imports of the products shipped from Japan and Belgium following outbreaks of the fever in the two countries. China also ordered to return or dispose the products from the two countries.
The implemented bans aim to protect China's livestock industry and prevent further spread of the deadly disease from Bulgaria. The country banned the transport of live pigs and products from regions reported to have African swine fever cases and their neighboring provinces. The implementation of the bans heightened after news spread of its outbreak in some regions in China.
Global health officials are now making their moves to avoid and control the outbreak of the African swine fever. According to the World Organization for Animal Health, the humans may have been the cause of the recent spread to Belgium where eight cases were confirmed since September 25.
The virus was reported to reach China this summer and it started spreading in Western Europe for the first time in September. Matthiew Stone, deputy director general for international standards and science of the World Organization for Animal Health, said that an outbreak of African swine fever is a very serious event. He added that the authorities of countries affected are under extraordinary pressure. In the CNN report on October 2, the estimate infected boars and domestics pigs reached 361,000 with more than 119,000 deaths in 2018.
The affected animals suffer from hemorrhaging lesions on their skin and internal organs and all cases can result in their death within 10 days of infection.
