Chinese farmers count cost of pig disease_(hmm yummy bet fda approves these for sale as well)

YUNFU, China, May 18 (Reuters) - When some of her pigs stopped eating, it was Zhu Hongying's first sign that they were sick.

She called a veterinarian, who diagnosed them with a fever and administered injections. Exactly what medicine they were given, she did not say, but the jabs didn't help.

"The more shots they were given, the worse they got," Zhu said. "Their bodies turned black. About a week later, they died."

Lijah'sbubbe, thanks for the link.

From the Reuters article they said that there was some concern that melamine in food fed to pigs may have lowered the resistance to this deadly porcine virus. So far that mode of infection has been ruled out.

Reuters says that as many as a million pigs have died so far.

From the Reuters article:

Experts and industry sources say an epidemic of Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS), or blue ear disease, has gone on for more than a year, spread to various provinces and wiped out as many as a million pigs in China.

The Agriculture Ministry has made a nationwide plea for local governments to report new cases of the disease, which causes still-births, fever, loss of appetite, diarrhoea, redness of the skin and mortality rates of up to 50 percent on some farms.

The disease, which is common in pigs, costs the U.S. industry $600 million a year.

The only good news is that humans can't get it. Here's an article from the Seattle PI:

Last updated May 10, 2007 12:45 a.m. PT
China: Pig disease could spread

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BEIJING -- A disease killing pigs in southern China could spread with hotter summer weather, China's Agriculture Ministry warned Thursday.
The illness, which has killed at least 300 pigs, has been identified as a strain of blue ear disease, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Wednesday.
"It is the season for peak outbreaks. High temperature and humidity could cause even more outbreaks in the summer and autumn," the Agriculture Ministry said in a notice on its Web site.
It is difficult to know how widespread the disease is because China's pig industry is fragmented, with many animals raised on small farms or by individual farmers, the notice said.
It said local governments must increase their reporting of new cases.
Xinhua said blue ear disease spread to China in the mid-1990s, but a new mutation has caused the recent outbreak.
Blue ear disease, also called porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome, was first identified in the United States in 1987, according to the Web site of the World Organization for Animal Health.
The ministry statement said the disease does not affect people.
The pigs in Guangdong province showed symptoms typical of the disease, including loss of appetite, fever and bleeding, Xinhua said.
The affected pigs were all raised by individual households instead of large-scale farms and were not for export, it said.
Hong Kong media said Monday about 1,300 pigs were believed to have been infected.
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On the Net:
Agriculture Ministry: http://www.agri.gov.cn)

Seattle PI- China: Pig disease could spread

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