Vietnam facing worsening African swine fever outbreaks

HANOI (Reuters): Vietnam has been hit by an increasing number of outbreaks of African swine fever, with the number of infected pigs more than tripling in just two weeks, state media said on Tuesday.

The country has detected 972 African swine fever outbreaks so far this year, up from 514 reported in mid-July, the Tien Phong newspaper reported.

The number of pigs infected has risen to more than 100,000 from 30,000 over the same period, the paper said, citing Vietnam’s agriculture ministry. The infected pigs have died or been culled.

“ASF has broken out on a very large scale, spreading across the country, seriously affecting the livestock industry, especially the supply of pork,” Nguyen Xuan Duong, chairman of the Animal Husbandry Association of Vietnam, was quoted as saying. He added that no province is safe from the disease.

African swine fever has disrupted the global pork market for years. In the worst outbreak over 2018-19, about half the domestic pig population died in China, the world’s biggest producer, causing losses estimated at over $100 billion.

The outbreaks in Vietnam last month prompted Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh to send an urgent directive to provinces and government agencies to deploy measures to curb the disease, which the government said was threatening to disrupt food supplies.

Though Vietnam was the first country reportedly to have developed an African swine fever vaccine that has been in commercial use since 2023, officials said the vaccination rate was low due to concerns about costs and efficiency.

“Vaccination is just a supporting tool that can not replace basic prevention measures,” Duong said.

AVAC Vietnam JSC, the country’s main African swine fever vaccine producer, didn’t respond to Reuters’ request for comment.

AVAC said in June it had sold 3 million vaccine doses in the domestic market and exported 600,000 doses to other countries, including the Philippines and Indonesia.