Police last month found that pork products smuggled from Vietnam contained the African swine fever virus and were being sold in New Taipei City. Since then, police and customs officials nationwide have seized more smuggled products that have tested positive for the virus, the Council of Agriculture has said.
To prevent the fatal virus spreading to local hog farms, the council on Wednesday banned the use of kitchen waste to feed pigs for a month, and is offering a reward of up to NT$1.2 million (US$43,317) for tips that lead to the discovery of illegal feeding practices.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Finance has ordered the Customs Administration to inspect all goods delivered from Vietnam via air delivery, to close a loophole in disease prevention that has allowed unscrupulous exporters to circumvent Taiwan’s clearance and quarantine measures.
Government officials last week said the nation was at a critical juncture, adding that efforts to prevent a local outbreak of the virus must be bolstered ahead of the Mid-Autumn Festival.
The products seized in Taichung and Kaohsiung, as well as Hsinchu, Changhua and Yunlin counties, include moon cakes, sausages and pork rolls. A police investigation has found that the smuggled products had been in Taiwan for quite some time, and they might have arrived through multiple channels.
If it were not for whistle-blowers, the government would have remained blind to the loophole in air mail services and continued to be complacent about preventing African swine fever.
Taiwan has been on its guard against the disease since an outbreak in 2018, and has endeavored to block contaminated pork products at the border. If the virus reaches local hog farms, it could devastate the nation’s pork industry, which has spent the past two decades recovering from an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in 1997.
After a 24-year hiatus, Taiwan last year resumed fresh pork exports after the Paris-based World Organisation for Animal Health in June officially declared the nation free of the disease without animal vaccinations required.
The African swine fever virus is highly contagious and can survive in refrigerated pork for 100 days, frozen pork for as long as 1,000 days, farmhouses for a month and pig feces for 11 days. It can also be spread through bodily fluids, secretions or the excrement of infected pigs.
Clothing, shoes, hats, vehicles and farm equipment, as well as contaminated kitchen waste and drinking water, are also potential transmission pathways for the virus. Unfortunately, there is no vaccine or treatment for the disease, and the only way to stop it is by culling infected animals.
Some hog farmers use kitchen waste as feed, as its high fat content makes pigs develop flavorful, marbled meat. The Council of Agriculture is hoping that by banning the use of kitchen waste as pig feed, it would prevent the virus from reaching the nation’s valuable hog farming industry.
Local governments have also ramped up inspections of hog farms, and increased the frequency of health checks on pigs and disinfection operations. More measures are necessary to keep the virus at bay. For instance, government agencies could screen hog farms in counties and cities where tainted pork products were found.
Labor authorities should promote public awareness and educate migrant workers not to import or purchase illegal pork products, and be willing to enforce punishment. Meanwhile, e-commerce platforms should not sell meat products that have not passed quarantine and the government must ensure strict enforcement of meat sales.
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