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Big Caixin investigation into the African swine fever epidemic in China: caixinglobal.com/2019-07-05/how… 1/n
The first case of ASF was reported in China just under one year ago in Liaoning province, and it has already spread to every province/region of the country. The same disease took 10 years to spread across all of Russia 2/n
"There are less pigs in Russia," as my dad, a former vet, pointed out. True, but according to accounts from pig farmers, breeders, and slaughterhouse owners, it probably spread "like fire" because of one major reason: money. 3/n
If ASF is found, farmers that have to cull their pigs are guaranteed a subsidy per pig. But what happens when a small city such as Zhaoqing, Guangdong province has to pay subsidies for (possibly more than) 70,000 pigs? That's 10s of mns of yuan. can't afford it. 4/n
according to CX's investigation, local officials refused to acknowledge outbreaks. no outbreak, no subsidies. Pig carcasses were piled up on the sides of the roads, thrown into rivers, buried in pits. 5/n
A tacit agreement seemed to emerge. Pigs start dying? SELL THEM. Local govts would grant the required quarantine certificates so that the pigs could be sold. Potentially infected pigs were sold for pennies and sent to slaughterhouses, sometimes in a different province. 6/n
ASF is a pretty hardy virus, and there are accounts of it being found on roads and on tires. But it can only be spread through contact. So what happens when infected pigs get sent to a slaughterhouse in a different province? 7/n
you guessed it. More infected pigs. Luckily ASF can't be spread to humans, but that's why some frozen pork dumplings tested positive for the virus back in Feb caixinglobal.com/2019-02-18/fro… 8/n
CX found anecdotal evidence illegally transporting pigs to different provinces despite bans, of local govs attempting to enact adequate quarantine and disinfection measures but lacking the knowledge/experience/materials required. in short, policy implementation was a mess 9/n
Highly recommend reading our abridged English version of the investigation (here's the link again) caixinglobal.com/2019-07-05/how… and the full Chinese version science.caixin.com/2019-07-05/101…. huge story, respect to my chinese colleagues for all of their digging and resourcefulness /end
