As African swine fever spreads across many Asian and European countries, pig owners in New Zealand are vigilant about biological protection and do not feed pigs raw meat.
Contaminated meat brought into the country from regions where the ASF virus is confirmed is a real danger to the meat industry. It can provoke not only African swine fever, but also diseases such as BSE and foot and mouth disease.
Direct speech: “This underlines the danger of feeding livestock any waste, since contaminated food can be a source of diseases such as BSE and foot and mouth disease. Many farmers raise pigs, usually for their consumption.
We ask pig owners and hunters to be especially vigilant about signs of illness or sudden death of pigs, and that they must comply with hygiene and animal feeding rules, ”said Will Halliday, Senior Biosafety Advisor, Beef + Lamb New Zealand.
Feeding with infected imported meat was identified as the main risk of foot and mouth disease in New Zealand. Any food waste must be heated to 100 ° C for one hour before feeding them pigs, experts say.
Farmers traveling to ASF countries should stay away from pigs and not come into contact with pigs for at least five days after returning home. Although ASF is deadly to pigs, it poses no threat to human health.
The virus can persist for many months on equipment, boots and clothing, so the rules for cleaning, disinfection and drying should be followed, especially when moving between farms. Timor Leste has recently been affected by this disease, and since a small Southeast Asian country is located just a few hundred miles from Australia, there has been alarm in the region.
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