TOKYO, Oct. 21 ― Japan’s agriculture ministry has issued an online video to educate farmers on preventive measures to avoid African swine fever, as the highly contagious disease is on the rise in China and beyond.
African swine fever is not harmful to humans but is often fatal to pigs and impossible to vaccinate against.
The online video, which last two-and-a-half minutes, advises farmers to observe hygiene, to properly monitor people’s movements in farms and to heat animal feed very well as the virus can survive for months in meat products.
African swine fever has now reached most of China’s pig-farming regions. According to the Japanese agriculture ministry, the deadly disease has been detected in 52 locations across China since early August.
As concerns have grown over the rapid onset of the deadly disease in China, experts have suggested that the spread of the virus to China’s neighboring countries was a near certainty.