Authorities are investigating the provenance of a dead pig that washed up on a Hong Kong beach this morning amid a massive outbreak of African swine fever (ASF) on the mainland that has seen hundreds of thousands of pigs culled.
According to Ming Pao, the metre-long pig was discovered by a resident who was taking a dip in the sea at Tung Wan Beach, on Cheung Chau, an island that’s a one-hour ferry ride from Central.
Police received a report at about 10:30am, and placed a police cordon around the area. Personnel from the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) were also present at the scene.
It’s unclear at this point where the pig came from, and police are looking into whether or not the carcass originated from Cheung Chau or had drifted in from somewhere else.
The news comes after the mainland authorities announced on Tuesday that they had culled 916,000 pigs after around 100 outbreaks of ASF were reported in the country.
According to the state-run news agency Xinhua, 24 provinces and regions have reported cases since the first outbreak in August. Apple Daily reports that these areas include major cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, and Shenyang, in Liaoning province, where the first case was reported.
Cities in Guangdong province, which borders Hong Kong, have also reported cases.
While there have been no reported ASF cases in Hong Kong so far, infected carcasses have washed ashore in Taiwan.
In December, a dead pig was found washed up on a beach in Taiwan’s Kinmen Islands, about 10 kilometers from Fujian province, where swine fever was reported earlier that month. Though the carcass tested positive for swine fever, nearby farms were not affected.
Taiwan’s Central News Agency reported that President Tsai Ing-wen has urged Beijing to share information with Taipei on how it is containing the outbreak.
According to a document by the FEHD, ASF is a contagious, viral disease that only affects pigs. The death rate can reach up to 100 percent, and there is no vaccine or treatment available. It goes on to say that ASF is not a threat to food safety, but it can affect pig production systems.
Hong Kong officials conducted training in December on how to respond in the event of an ASF outbreak in the SAR. However, personnel responding to today’s discovery may have been surprised to find that the decomposing pig carcass found on Cheung Chau was noticeably less adorable than the toy pigs used in last month’s government drill.
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