Council of Agriculture Minister Chen Chi-chung says that Taiwan is stepping up measures to prevent the importation and spread of African swine fever. That came Wednesday, after the discovery that more smuggled pork products had tested positive for the disease.
African swine fever does not affect humans but is deadly to pigs. The disease has hit some of Taiwan's Asian neighbors hard and is a serious threat to Taiwan's sizable pork industry.
Since identifying the first contaminated pork products on Sunday, police have investigated 1,300 suppliers. A report came back Wednesday morning that four products, including two containing raw meat, were contaminated with the disease. Authorities are worried because these four products were found in the Changhua, Tainan, and Kaohsiung areas, three major pig farming centers.
The Council of Agriculture has put four measures in place to prevent further contamination. Local authorities will inspect pig farms across Taiwan. They will also dispose of all unidentified meat products from Vietnam, the source of the smuggled meat found to contain the disease. In addition, they will remove roadside compost bins where people leave scraps that are usually turned into pig feed. Finally, the labor ministry is alerting migrant workers and new residents not to buy illegal meat products.
Chen says that authorities will finish inspecting all pig farms before the Mid-Autumn Festival on September 21. He is calling on all farms to strictly follow the safety guidelines in order to keep African swine fever from spreading.