Cambodia: Pig carcasses with PRRS torched

04 Oct 2010
VetsWeb.com

In Kandal Province pig carcasses were burned after four pigs that were tested were discovered to have been infected with Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS), also known as blue-ear pig disease.

The burning of the carcasses took place on Saturday. The pigs were taken away by Muk Kampoul district police on 22 September from a trader who imported the pigs from Vietnam, according to the deputy director of the Department of Animal Health and Production at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Has Piseth.

Blue-ear disease discovered

“We tested four of the 49 pigs and found that they had blue-ear disease. We ordered officials and the police to burn the bodies to prevent the disease from infecting other pigs,” said the deputy director.

Banned

Prime Minister Hun Sen placed a ban, on 4 August, on the importation of pigs from Vietnam and Thailand so that there is no occurrence of the spread of PRRS.

Cambodia - Drop in pork sales

Pork seller at Phsar Deum Kor (Photo: Ly Meng Huor, RFI)

25 Aug 2010
MeatTradeNewsDaily.co.uk

It has been reported that vendors in PHNOM Penh, Cambodia’s capital, have been selling up to two-thirds less pork due to consumer disease fears.

This comes as a consequence to the outbreak of blue-ear disease in the country and the warnings relayed by government officials to consumers that if pork meats from infected animals are eaten, illness (severe diarrhoea) could occur in people who have had the meat from animals which have not been cooked properly; although a United Nations official stated that the disease could not be contracted by humans.

“Before, I sold around 20 pigs per day, but now I can sell only seven or eight pigs,” said a vendor.

Earlier in the month, a ban on pig imports from Thailand and Vietnam was put in place in order to halt the spreading of the disease.

Cambodia - Pigs crossing the border

06 Aug 2010
Meat Trade News Daily

Srun Pov, president of Association of Pigs Raising in Cambodia, said Wednesday that about 1,000 pigs are illegally imported from Viet Nam into Cambodia every day, and some of them are ill.

He said if such situation continued, the pig raising industry in Cambodia will be dead, adding that the pigs imported from Vietnam are priced at just over 6,000 riel (about 1.42 US dollars) per kilogram, about 3,000 riel cheaper than pigs raised in Cambodia.

Srun Pov, however, acknowledged that throughout Cambodia, a total of more than 4,000 pigs are needed for daily consumption, and in Phnom Penh alone it needs between 1,200 to 1,300 pigs, but the domestic pigs in Cambodia is not sufficient.

He said the country lacks about 700 to 800 pigs per day, but farmers are discouraged to raise pigs because of those imported ones from neighboring countries.

Cambodia allowed to import 800 pigs per day from Thailand, but as their price is higher than those imported from Vietnam, Thai pigs import have been stalled over the past months, said Srun Pov.

In May this year, Curtis Hundley, chairman of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) of the USAID said Cambodia had imported about one million pigs per year from Thailand alone and that had lost about 45 million US dollars a year to the farmers' pockets.

Cambodia is an agrarian country and rich in natural resources, while it still imports pigs, chicken and fish from neighboring countries as well as other household stuff and products for daily consumption.

Cambodia bans pig imports as blue-ear swine disease spreads

Thu, 05 Aug 2010
DPA

Phnom Penh - Cambodia has banned the import of pigs from Vietnam and Thailand after swine infected with blue-ear disease were smuggled into the country from neighbouring Vietnam and infected others.

The ban was announced by Prime Minister Hun Sen on Wednesday, who also asked market vendors to keep pork prices stable.

"I would like to appeal to provincial authorities, especially provinces near the borders of Vietnam and Thailand, to suspend pig imports," Hun Sen said, warning that the disease could spread rapidly through the pig population.

Agriculture Minister Chan Sarun said the outbreak had followed an order by Hanoi instructing pig farmers in neighbouring Vietnam to slaughter infected swine.

But he said some farmers had instead dumped their pigs across the border in Cambodia at knock-down prices, spreading the disease, which is also known as porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome.

Testing has revealed that hundreds of pigs have died from the disease in four provinces bordering Vietnam, and experts said blue-ear has probably spread to half of Cambodia's 24 provinces.

The US Agency for International Development (USAID) told the Phnom Penh Post newspaper the disease has the potential to cause significant losses to Cambodia's pig industry.

"We are talking somewhere between one or two million pigs, and each pig is worth about 100 dollars at market, so it's a huge industry here," said Curtis Hundley, who heads USAID's Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise Agency in Cambodia.

Most rural families in Cambodia own a pig, making pork a staple source of protein along with fish and chicken.

In 2007 Cambodia banned pig imports from Thailand and Vietnam for eight months after a similar outbreak.

Officials Fear Swine Epidemic From Vietnam, Thailand

Family-raised pigs in Takeo (Photo: Leng Maly, RFA)

Heng Reaksmey, VOA Khmer
Phnom Penh Wednesday, 04 August 2010

“Animal health officials, military police and police, as well as customs officials, are working closely together to stop the illegal import of pigs,” Agriculture Minister Chan Sarun said at Wednesday’s meeting. “This measure is to prevent an epidemic of the disease from one side [of the border] to the other.”

Hundreds of pigs have now died across nine provinces, from two types of disease that may have come from neighboring countries, animal health officials said Wednesday.

The pigs have all died in the last two weeks, fanning concern of an epidemic, officials said in a special meeting of provincial leaders in Phnom Penh. Authorities say they are concerned infected pigs are being smuggled in from Thailand and Vietnam.

Government officials are now appealing to provincial officials near the borders to step up efforts to stop the import of pigs for an unspecified amount of time.

“Animal health officials, military police and police, as well as customs officials, are working closely together to stop the illegal import of pigs,” Agriculture Minister Chan Sarun said at Wednesday’s meeting. “This measure is to prevent an epidemic of the disease from one side [of the border] to the other.”

Blood tests by the Ministry of Agriculture’s department of animal health on more than 80 pigs turned up two causes for the deaths: porcine reproductive respiratory syndrome and classical swine fever.

Classical swine fever was found in samples from Kampong Chhnang, Kampong Cham and Takeo provinces. PRRS was found in samples from Kampong Chhnang, Kandal, Kampong Cham, Takeo and Prey Veng provinces, officials said.

Authorities from the ministry’s department of animal health have taken control of villages in nine provinces where they hope to contain the spread of the diseases.

A similar epidemic in China in 2006 killed more than 10,000 pigs before it was brought under control. In May, Vietnam and Laos experienced a similar outbreak, followed by another in Thailand last month.

Cambodia bans imports of pigs, fearing spread of disease

August 04, 2010
Xinhua

Cambodia authorities on Wednesday imposed ban on import of pigs from neighboring countries, fearing the spread of disease.

Srun Pov, president of Association of Pigs Raising in Cambodia, said Wednesday that he had raised the fear of the pig disease spread to Cambodia through the import from Vietnam to the authorities several weeks ago.

According to Srun Pov, Cambodia needs a total of more than 4, 000 pigs for daily consumption, and in Phnom Penh alone it needs between 1,200 to 1,300 pigs.

Cambodia is reported to have imported about one million pigs per year from Thailand alone.

No Viet pigs and Siamese pigs in Cambodia: Hun Xen

Hun Xen orders suspension of pig import to Cambodia

04 August 2010
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Socheata

On 04 August, Hun Xen ordered the Cambodian authority to suspend all pig imports from neighboring countries, in particular from Vietnam, due to an outbreak of pig disease. During a speech given at a distribution of diplomas to Build Bright students in Phnom Penh on Wednesday, Hun Xen ordered a suspension of all pig imports from abroad, he also called on the sellers not to increase the price of pork meat during this import suspension, at a time when the demand for local pork meat will increase.

Mystery Pig Deaths Spread Through Three Provinces

Animal health authorities are trying to learn what has killed nearly 200 pigs in three separate provinces. (Photo: AP)

Heng Reaksmey, VOA Khmer
Phnom Penh Monday, 02 August 2010

“On Saturday, we started the blood tests on seven pigs.”

Animal health authorities are trying to learn what has killed nearly 200 pigs in three separate provinces.

An unknown number of pigs have died in the provinces of Battambang and Kampong Cham, while nearly 150 have perished in the southern province of Kampot.

Health officials said the disease appears to be bacterial, making an outbreak of H1N1, sometimes called swine flu, unlikely.

On Monday, officials began blood tests of pigs in Kampot, where the latest and most severe outbreak has occurred.

“On Saturday, we started the blood tests on seven pigs,” Kao Phal, director of the animal health department of the Ministry of Agriculture, said Monday. “But unitl now we do not know exactly the disease that happened to the pigs is.”

The animal health department is also appealing to farmers not to transport any pigs from their farms to market for the rest of the month of August, he said.

Cambodia bans Communist Vietnamese Pigs

A vendor transports pigs on a motorcycle at a market in Phnom Penh August 17, 2007. Cambodia has banned the import of pigs and pork from neighbouring Vietnam, Laos and Thailand in fear of a porcine disease spreading from China, Agriculture Minister Chan Sarun said on Friday. REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea

Pork-borne Disease Outbreak Fear in Cambodia

Friday, August 17, 2007
AFP

Cambodia Thursday banned the import of live pigs and pork products, citing fears that outbreaks of pork-borne diseases in other countries could devastate farms here.

The move came as China battles a recent outbreak of blue ear disease that led to a mass cull of pigs.

In neighbouring Vietnam, 26 people have been admitted to a Hanoi hospital with a bacterial infection from diseased pigs, leading to two confirmed human deaths.

Twenty others were treated this year in southern Vietnam for the same illness.

Thursday's ban is also aimed at cutting down on pork products smuggled into the country, mostly from Vietnam.

Contraband pork raises "the possibility of infection among pigs in Cambodia and could block the development of family farms," said the public directive, which was ordered by Prime Minister Hun Sen.

Most small family farms in rural Cambodia have at least one pig, and pork is a key source of food, as well as an important commodity for often impoverished farmers.

The order does allow piglets to be imported for breeding or research purposes, as long as they receive approval from the agriculture ministry.

Cambodia has taken similar measures against poultry imports in the past in a bid to contain bird flu, which has hit hard the poultry industry in both Vietnam and Thailand.

Vietnam moves to control pig disease

Pigs are seen at a farm outside Hanoi (aka Communist Hanoi Pigs?)

Friday, August 17, 2007
Reuters

Battling a severe pig disease, Vietnam has dispatched virus samples to the United States and is poised to implement fresh measures to try to rein in the unprecedented epidemic, a government expert said on Friday.

The outbreak of Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS), or blue ear disease, began in Vietnam in June and is worst in the central provinces of Quang Nam and Quang Ngai, said epidemiologist Do Huu Dung of the Department of Animal Health.

Although the disease has been detected in the past in imported pigs, it has never spread on such a scale, Dung said.

At least 28,000 pigs were infected by end July, according to government statistics. And around 20 percent of these have died, epidemiologist Dung told Reuters in a telephone interview.

Experts from the Food and Agriculture Organisation arrived on Sunday to visit some of Vietnam's worst-affected sites.

"They will give a report to the agriculture minister next week. We hope they will come up with recommendations," Dung said.

Vietnam's epidemic began at a time when the disease was sweeping through many provinces in neighbouring China, whittling down pig populations and raising prices of pork there.

The disease inundated almost half of China in 2006 and China's top veterinarian said in June that the disease killed about 1 million pigs in the country last year.

Tracking the spread

Experts are not sure how the virus, which causes high fever, still-births, appetite loss, diarrhoea and redness of the skin, got into Vietnam but they are trying to nail down its origins.

Samples of the Vietnam virus arrived on Wednesday in the United States, where they would be genetically sequenced, Dung said. Virus samples will also be sent to China for sequencing.

Such analyses enable scientists to determine how close it is to the strain proliferating in China, or if they are identical.

The genetic footprints will allow experts to postulate on the likely direction and ways the virus spread, so more targeted action may be taken to arrest its movement.

Asked if the virus may have spread to Vietnam from China, Dung said: "We cannot be so sure. You can suspect it but we will soon know about that once the gene sequencing data is available."

"We are cooperating with China on different control measures, like vaccination, and we are getting a China expert very soon."

Symptoms similar to those in China

Chinese scientists said in a published paper recently that China's PRRS epidemic was caused by a new and highly pathogenic strain of the disease which caused several new and unusually severe symptoms in adult pigs.

Although a serious swine disease, PRRS usually causes reproductive failure in pregnant sows or respiratory tract distress in suckling pigs. Usually, it was the piglets that died.

Dung said signs of the disease in Vietnam were similar to those in China, like high fever. Animals which fell ill also included adult pigs, which were normally not susceptible.

The epidemic has rattled Cambodia, which banned the import of pigs and pork from neighboring Vietnam, Laos and Thailand.

The PRRS virus was first recognized in the United States in the mid-1980s and the disease costs the U.S. swine industry some $600 million each year.