{"id":20177,"date":"2021-09-17T14:57:14","date_gmt":"2021-09-17T21:57:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/?p=20177"},"modified":"2021-09-17T13:33:39","modified_gmt":"2021-09-17T20:33:39","slug":"africa-swine-fever-is-china-downplaying-another-disease-outbreak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/africa-swine-fever-is-china-downplaying-another-disease-outbreak\/","title":{"rendered":"Africa Swine Fever: Is China downplaying another disease outbreak?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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DW – September 17, 2021<\/p>\n

During a\u00a0teleconference 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.<\/p>\n

Hu’s comments came before the discovery of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.<\/a> Instead, he was referring to a different, far deadlier disease: African Swine Fever (ASF) \u2014 an illness that affects pigs.<\/p>\n

Chinese officials first identified ASF\u00a0in 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\u00a0mortality rates approach 100%.<\/p>\n

ASF is of particular concern in China, the world’s top pork consumer and home to\u00a0roughly half of the world’s pigs. Given the country’s enormous pig population, ASF\u00a0could turn China into a significant reservoir of disease and pose a threat to China’s neighbors in the region if it becomes endemic.<\/p>\n

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,\u00a0ASF numbers have consistently declined, according to official figures.<\/p>\n

Some industry experts, however, believe that China may be obfuscating\u00a0African Swine Fever’s actual toll on hog herds by under-reporting infection numbers, and painting an artificially rosy picture.<\/p>\n

The cost of pork in China<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.dw.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DW – September 17, 2021 During a\u00a0teleconference 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 … Continue reading Africa Swine Fever: Is China downplaying another disease outbreak?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[14373,12,36,22,23,16130,42],"class_list":["post-20177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pale-horse","tag-african-swine-fever","tag-china","tag-disaster","tag-disease","tag-epidemic","tag-hu-chunhua","tag-outbreak"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20177"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20179,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20177\/revisions\/20179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}