Hanoi (VNA) – The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in Vietnamhas pledged to help the country control the spread of African swine fever (ASF),that recently broke out in the northern provinces of Thai Binh and Hung Yen.

Pawin Padungtod, Senior Technical Coordinator of FAOVietnam’s Emergency Centre for Transboundary Animal Diseases (ECTAD), said theorganisation is mobilising resources to support the country.

He underscored the significance of a timely report on suspected cases and theimplementation of the action plan to control the disease effectively.

Coordination between breeders, traders, government agencies, and the public is crucialto preventing the spread of ASF in Vietnam, said Padungtod.

There has been no effective vaccine to protect swine from the disease, he said,noting that the ASF virus is very hardy and can survive long periods in both verycold and very hot weather, and even in dried or cured pork products.

He, therefore, stressed that ensuring strict biosafety at pig farms can preventthe presence of ASF as well as risks to the livelihood of breeders.
ASF is a fatal animal disease affecting pigs andwild boars with up to 100 percent mortality, and subsequently damaging tradeand causing global economic losses. The ASFvirus does not affect humans. The only known preventative measure is a masscull of infected livestock. The disease spreads by contact between infected pigsor other wild animals and can inflict massive economic damage on farms.

Since the ASF outbreaks were recorded in China in 2018, the FAO has providedtechnical support Vietnam to build a national action plan on promptlyresponding to and controlling the virus. It has also assisted the country inevaluating the risks and organising an exercise on emergency response to ASF inthe northern mountainous province of Lao Cai.

At the same time, the FAO held regional seminars on ASF prevention for animalhealth workers from Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, and China, in an effort to preventthe spread of the disease in Southeast Asia.

According to the Department of Animal, the ASFvirus was discovered in Hung Yen’s Trung Nghia commune (Hung Yen city) and YenHoa commune (Yen My district), with the results of samples taken from otherfarms surrounding the outbreak spots still pending. 

Meanwhile, in Thai Binh, a number ofhousehold-based pig farms in Hung Ha district’s Dong Do commune were also foundto be contaminated with the disease. The results of samples taken from nearbyfarms were negative.

In response to the detection, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development(MARD) has directed the culling of all infected pigs and the crucial conductionof a cleaning process in the hotspots and high-risk locations. The transport,slaughtering, and distribution of pork from the ASF-hit areas are under tightmonitoring by competent agencies, while mass examinations of all pig farms in thesecommunes will be launched. –VNA