# 740
It may not be flattering to the pig, but swine and humans share a lot in common. At least biologically. We are susceptible to a lot of the same diseases. Pigs are infamous for being hosts for influenza, and are considered ideal `mixing vessels' for the virus.
We therefore watch for disease outbreaks in pigs, knowing that they can often pose a hazard to humans.
Over the past couple of years, there have been a number of outbreaks of pig die off's in China. In 2005, an outbreak of Streptococcus Suis was reported in China, killing thousands of pigs and infecting more than 200 humans and resulting in dozens of deaths.
That we know of.
The Nipah virus, normally found in Malaysian fruit bats, has found a home in pigs as well, and from there, has jumped to Man and has proven to be exceptionally lethal.
The Chinese government has been slow to admit to problems in their pig production, and we rarely get extensive media coverage of large die offs of swine. That is, until today.
This from ASIAONE news.
Unidentified illness kills more than 300 pigs in southern China
May 6, 11:13 PM EDT
Reports: Unidentified illness kills more than 300 pigs in southern China
HONG KONG (AP) -- An unidentified animal illness has spread in two southern Chinese cities, infecting at least 1,300 pigs and killing more than 300, Hong Kong newspapers reported Monday. No human infections have been reported.
The illness started killing pigs in Yunfu city in southern Guangdong province in early April, eventually claiming the lives of more than 300 of the animals, the Ming Pao Daily News reported, citing government statistics.
The Apple Daily newspaper said the illness killed 80 percent of the pig population in Yunfu.
The Ming Pao said more than 1,000 pigs in nearby Gaoyao city have fallen ill since late April, with some dying.
Apple Daily said symptoms of the unidentified disease included loss of appetite, high fever and bleeding.
The newspaper said the disease had been spread by people dumping dead pigs by the dozens into rivers. The Ming Pao ran a photo showing a bloated pig in a river infested by flies.
The Wen Wei Po newspaper quoted an unidentified local official as saying that animal experts have ruled out a disease that can cross over to humans, but have not diagnosed the illness.
"Provincial experts have taken back samples. Authoritative results haven't come out yet," the official reportedly said.
Calls to Guangdong's health and agricultural departments and the Yunfu city government either went unanswered or rang busy.
A man who answered the phone at the Gaoyao city government denied that a pig illness had surfaced, or that any pigs had died for unusual reasons. The man refused to give his name.
The denials by the city government, and the lack of information from the health and agricultural departments is, sadly, the way things seem to work in China. The SARS outbreak in 2003 was held close to the vest for months, giving the virus an opportunity to spread, before any admission was made that the Chinese were seeing a new infectious disease.
The New York Times has an article on this today, also.
Epidemic Is Killing Pigs in Southeastern China
Published: May 7, 2007
Hong Kong, May 7 — A mysterious epidemic is killing pigs in southeastern China, but international and Hong Kong authorities said today that the Chinese government is providing little information about it, or about the contaminated wheat gluten that has caused deaths and illnesses in other animals.
The lack of even basic details is reviving longstanding questions about whether China is willing to share information about health and food safety issues with potential global implications.
The Chinese government — and particularly the government of Guangdong Province, which is adjacent to Hong Kong — was criticized in 2003 for concealing information about the SARS virus for the first four months after it emerged in Foshan, 95 miles northwest of Hong Kong. After SARS spread to Hong Kong and around the world, top Chinese officials promised to improve disclosure.
But officials in Hong Kong as well as at the World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization, both agencies of the United Nations, said today that they been told almost nothing about the latest pig deaths, and been given limited details about wheat gluten contamination.
Because pigs can catch many of the same diseases as people, including bird flu, the two U.N. agencies maintain global networks to track and investigate unexplained patterns of pig deaths.
Hong Kong television broadcasts and newspapers were full of lurid accounts today of pigs staggering around with blood pouring from their bodies in Gaoyao and neighboring Yunfu, both in Guangdong Province. The Apple Daily newspaper said that as many as 80 percent of the pigs in the area had died, that panicky farmers were selling ailing animals at deep discounts and that pig carcasses were floating in a river.
The reports in Hong Kong said the disease began killing pigs after the Chinese New Year celebrations in February, and is now spreading. But state-controlled news outlets in China have reported almost nothing about the pig deaths, and very little about the wheat gluten problem.
So, depending on the source, this outbreak started in early April, or February, and it is now spreading. The Chinese have been silent on this for quite some time, and are not providing the WHO or the FAO with vital details.
And one must remember that we still haven't seen any samples from the human H5N1 viral infections out of China in over a year.
Whether this pig disease turns out to have anything to do with H5N1 is unknown right now. Probably not. The symptoms don't match those we'd expect to see, but the virus is changing, and so too could the clinical presentation.
Whatever the cause, China needs to begin to show some transparency on these matters before they brew a pathogen they can't contain, and that will blindside their neighbors.
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