Jul 30, 2005 ¡ª By Benjamin Kang Lim
BEIJING (Reuters) - Sichuan province in southwestern China has launched a campaign to educate poor, illiterate farmers not to slaughter sick pigs or eat their meat after an outbreak of swine flu hit about 100 villages and killed at least 34 people.
Sichuan, the country's top pork-producing province, has been forced to suspend all exports of chilled and frozen pork from Ziyang city and surrounding Neijiang prefecture to Hong Kong, where there have been 10 infections since 2004.
China's Ministry of Health said 174 people had been infected by the disease, 28 of them in critical condition.
More than 2 million notices have been issued in affected areas informing farmers of the dangers, the China Daily reported on Saturday, quoting a vice mayor of Ziyang, situated near the provincial capital, Chengdu.
About 50,000 health workers and officials have been sent to the areas to inspect and register every pig, and authorities have set up 39 temporary roadside quarantine stations to stop dead pigs from reaching markets.
"It's having a big effect ¡ In Sichuan, no one is buying meat or slaughtering hogs," Xie Hong of the animal feed company Southern Hope Co., part of the New Hope Group, told Reuters.
Pork is China's favorite meat and the country consumes more of it than anywhere else in the world. Of 618 million pigs slaughtered in 2004, Sichuan accounted for about 14 percent.
Authorities say victims were suffering from Streptococcus suis bacteria, or swine flu, an infection contracted from slaughtering, handling or eating infected pigs.
The disease, first reported in Neijiang, has spread to Chengdu itself and four other Sichuan cities. One case has been reported in the southern province of Guangdong near Hong Kong.
Two factories have resumed production of a vaccine used years ago to control previous outbreaks of swine flu.
Health officials in Sichuan and Beijing have been tight-lipped about the outbreak, which was discovered on June 24.
BEIJING (Reuters) - Sichuan province in southwestern China has launched a campaign to educate poor, illiterate farmers not to slaughter sick pigs or eat their meat after an outbreak of swine flu hit about 100 villages and killed at least 34 people.
Sichuan, the country's top pork-producing province, has been forced to suspend all exports of chilled and frozen pork from Ziyang city and surrounding Neijiang prefecture to Hong Kong, where there have been 10 infections since 2004.
China's Ministry of Health said 174 people had been infected by the disease, 28 of them in critical condition.
More than 2 million notices have been issued in affected areas informing farmers of the dangers, the China Daily reported on Saturday, quoting a vice mayor of Ziyang, situated near the provincial capital, Chengdu.
About 50,000 health workers and officials have been sent to the areas to inspect and register every pig, and authorities have set up 39 temporary roadside quarantine stations to stop dead pigs from reaching markets.
"It's having a big effect ¡ In Sichuan, no one is buying meat or slaughtering hogs," Xie Hong of the animal feed company Southern Hope Co., part of the New Hope Group, told Reuters.
Pork is China's favorite meat and the country consumes more of it than anywhere else in the world. Of 618 million pigs slaughtered in 2004, Sichuan accounted for about 14 percent.
Authorities say victims were suffering from Streptococcus suis bacteria, or swine flu, an infection contracted from slaughtering, handling or eating infected pigs.
The disease, first reported in Neijiang, has spread to Chengdu itself and four other Sichuan cities. One case has been reported in the southern province of Guangdong near Hong Kong.
Two factories have resumed production of a vaccine used years ago to control previous outbreaks of swine flu.
Health officials in Sichuan and Beijing have been tight-lipped about the outbreak, which was discovered on June 24.
