By Shan Chien
Recently, people must have been hearing about African swine fever, on radio or TV, informing us that China is now one of the epidemic areas so that the government bans pork products from china, via import-export channels or individual flights. However, does anyone know what it is?
African swine fever (ASF) is a highly contagious viral disease among swine. ASF can be transmitted through direct contact with infected animals, food scrapes, manure, and pork products. ASF only works on swine, that is to say, PEOPLE WON’T BE INFECTED!! Symptoms on swine include fever, loss of appetite, lack of energy, abortions, and internal hemorrhage that is visible on the ears and flanks. There is no treatment for this disease and the fatality rate is almost 100%. Once been infected, swine would die within 10 days.
If people won’t be infected, then why should we be afraid of its coming? Though people won’t contract ASF, the virus can survive in frozen (0 °C~-18°C) pork for 1000 day, in cooled (5 °C) pork for 100 day, and even in processed pork products it can survive for almost 140 days; thus, we see how tenacious the virus is. Once the pork product with ASF comes to Taiwan, the local swine would be easily infected and killed especially by our food scrapes.
If you still don’t consider it a serious issue, then you must do from now on. People should think about the consequences of a great number of dead pigs, which means great damage of swine farming and huge drop of pork supply. It would not only influence our daily meal but also have a great impact on the swine industry and on whoever earns a living by farming swine.
In conclusion, to protect our daily diet and swine industry, it’s our responsibility to say no to ASF pork products.
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