HANOI (Reuters) -African swine fever outbreaks are spreading in Vietnam, threatening to disrupt food supplies in the Southeast Asian country, the government warned on Friday.
Vietnam has this year detected 514 outbreaks in 28 out of 34 cities and provinces nationwide, the government said in a statement, adding that the authorities have culled more than 30,000 infected pigs.
“The risk of African swine fever is on a rising trend, negatively affecting the pig farming industry, food supplies and the environment,” the government said.
African swine fever has disrupted the global pork market for years. In the worst outbreak over 2018-19, about half the domestic pig population died in China, the world’s biggest producer, causing losses estimated at over $100 billion.
The recent outbreaks in Vietnam have prompted Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh to send an urgent directive to provinces and government agencies this week to deploy measures to curb the disease.
Vietnam in 2023 approved the domestic commercial use of its first home-grown African swine fever vaccines, but officials said the rate of vaccinated pigs remains low.
“Only around 30% of the pigs in my province have been vaccinated,” said an animal health official of Quang Ngai province, where infections have been reported over the past few weeks.
“It’s not clear why the rate is low – it could either be the issue of vaccine availability, efficiency or cost,” said another provincial official, who declined to be named as the person is not authorised to speak to the media.
The agriculture ministry’s Department of Animal Health didn’t respond to Reuters’ request for comment. Calls to AVAC Vietnam JSC, the country’s main African swine fever vaccine producer, went unanswered.
AVAC said last month it had sold 3 million vaccine doses in the domestic market and exported 600,000 doses to the Philippines and Indonesia.
(Reporting by Khanh Vu; Editing by David Stanway)
