HEALTH: Farm Practices Blamed for China’s ‘Pig-Flu’ Outbreak

By Marwaan Macan-Markar Reprint | | Print |

Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Jul 29 2005 (IPS) - Farming practices across East Asia are once again under scrutiny after over 30 people died in a south-western province of China from a mysterious disease caused by a common bacterium that thrives among pigs.

” Such an outbreak means there has been a breakdown in the bio-security measures in pig farms,” said Juan Lubroth, senior officer in the animal health services division of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), located in Rome.

The bacterium in question, streptococcus suis, has ”never behaved like this before,” Lubroth explained during a telephone interview from the agency’s headquarters. ”From what we know of streptococcus suis, it is very surprising. This is a new picture that has emerged”.

Lubroth, however, cautioned against placing blame entirely on Chinese farming practices for lapses in pig handling in an estimated 300 small farms in the Sichuan province. ”No country in the world has perfect bio- security measures in place on their farms,” he said.

Public health authorities were alarmed by the virulent nature of this disease, since a fifth of the estimated 152 people struck by this swine bacterium have died and another fifth, or some 30 people, are in a critical condition.

”The direct cause of human infection of the streptococcus suis bacteria is the slaughtering or processing of infected pigs,” China’s ministry of health stated on its website this week.

According to initial reports, farm workers who fell ill after handling infected pigs, bore similar symptoms: high fever, nausea, vomiting and haemorrhage.

This mysterious illness strengthens the case for ”good and hygienic farming practices,” said Lubroth, reiterating the message of an early July international conference on combating another deadly, farm-related disease, bird flu.

During the conference, held in Kuala Lumpur, international animal and public health experts called for overhaul of farming systems in countries affected by bird flu to prevent the spread of viruses among poultry stocks.

Among measures to strengthen bio-safety in poultry farms were segregation of bird varieties and reducing interaction between the animal species on farms and humans.

There was also a push to ”educate farmers and their families about the dangers of high-risk behaviour and how to change their farming practices.”

At the same time, the experts urged governments in the region to consider the danger of wet markets in many countries, where animals and poultry are slaughtered in the open and in ”insanitary conditions”.

”These activities constitute a high risk to people who are exposed to contaminated animals or products, such as blood, faeces, feathers and carcasses,” Joseph Domeneck, FAO’s chief veterinary officer, told the conference.

Lingering danger from the deadly bird flu virus continued to stalk South-east Asian countries all July. In Vietnam – the epicentre of the outbreak – two more people died from bird flu this week, a 24-year-old man and a 26-year old woman.

And barely a week before that, the Indonesian government confirmed the first bird flu deaths – that of a 38-year-old man and his two daughters. Jakarta has also reported two new suspected cases of the virulent H5N1 virus.

The death toll since bird flu emerged at the beginning of 2004 and swept through South-east Asia and parts of North-east Asia, including China, has now reached 60. The highest number of deaths were reported from Vietnam with 41 fatalities, followed by Thailand, with 12.

Thailand’s difficulty in containing bird flu – despite being hailed as having strong bio-security practices – was brought home recently, when the virus was found in poultry in central Thailand a day before Bangkok was to declare that the disease had been wiped out.

Indonesian authorities told the media this week that improved bio- security measures in the country’s farming communities are on the cards to combat bird flu.

”We have determined nine steps for prevention, such as intensifying the bio-security programme, applying a poultry vaccination programme, culling infected poultry and monitoring all production centres,” Soedarmono (only one name), a senior official at the agriculture ministry, was quoted Friday’s ‘Jakarta Post’ newspaper.

However, concern over both South-east Asia and North-east Asia being possible incubators for animal-related diseases goes back to 2003, when an epidemic of another equally deadly disease, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), emerged.

The virus, which killed 774 people worldwide, spread to humans from animals with southern China identified as the source.

Beijing’s openness in reporting the impact of swine bacterium is being appreciated, especially when seen against its previous record of trying to conceal details of SARS.

”The fact that China shared this information so soon is a welcome development,” said FAO’s Lubroth.