DW – September 17, 2021
During a teleconference more than two years ago, Chinese Vice-Premier Hu Chunhua urged health authorities to step up efforts to rein in a growing outbreak despite initial “positive results,” and suggested that “enhancing quarantine and monitoring” measures would help prevent the spread of the virus.
Hu’s comments came before the discovery of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Instead, he was referring to a different, far deadlier disease: African Swine Fever (ASF) — an illness that affects pigs.
Chinese officials first identified ASF in 2018 in Liaoning, a coastal province in China’s northeast. Unlike SARS-CoV-2, ASF does not threaten human health. The disease, however, is highly virulent in pigs and mortality rates approach 100%.
ASF is of particular concern in China, the world’s top pork consumer and home to roughly half of the world’s pigs. Given the country’s enormous pig population, ASF could turn China into a significant reservoir of disease and pose a threat to China’s neighbors in the region if it becomes endemic.
This year, China reported 12 ASF cases to the OIE, the intergovernmental body that tracks animal diseases, down from a high of 105 in 2018. Except for a small bump in cases earlier this year, ASF numbers have consistently declined, according to official figures.
Some industry experts, however, believe that China may be obfuscating African Swine Fever’s actual toll on hog herds by under-reporting infection numbers, and painting an artificially rosy picture.
The cost of pork in China is an economic bellwether. Tapping into China’s strategic pork stockpile allowed Beijing to stabilize pork prices from a high last year, but ASF could still cause headaches of epic proportions.