The number known to be infected by the pig-borne
disease in southwest China's Sichuan
Province that has killed 27 farmers so far was confirmed to
have risen to 131 by noon yesterday, according to the Ministry of
Health, and it has spread to six unidentified towns in previously
unaffected areas.
Though this was an increase of 14 on the day
before, the ministry stressed that 12 of the newly reported cases
were of people falling ill several days ago.
Cases of human infection had only previously been
reported in the cities of Ziyang and Neijiang, and officials said
the six cases diagnosed outside them had only come to light after
local governments stepped up efforts to identify infected
people.
The first known patient was admitted to Ziyang No.3
People’s Hospital on June 24, and since then no human-to-human
transmission has been confirmed, said Ministry of Health
spokesperson Mao Qun'an.
Xu Jianguo, Center for Disease Prevention and
Control epidemic prevention expert, was quoted by Xinhua News
Agency today saying that the Streptococcus suis bacterium in
infected pigs has been confirmed as having the same genetic
sequence as those in infected people.
Pork sales are expected to continue to be hit as
cases of the disease continue to rise, but officials in Nanjing and
Beijing maintained that the outbreak would pose no permanent threat
to either the industry or humans in the long run.
"We have the technology and procedures to bring the
disease under control," a Ministry of Agriculture official named
Wang said yesterday. "We have already developed pig vaccines,
though we have not produced them for a long while."
Two factories, one in Guangzhou in the southern
province of Guangdong
and another in Sichuan, are mass-producing the pig vaccines, said
Yao Huochun, an associate professor at Nanjing Agricultural
University’s College of Veterinary Medicine.
Lu Chengping, president of the college’s graduate
school, said healthy pigs commonly carry the bacteria with no
threat to human health, and that people are only likely to contract
the disease from slaughtering or handling pigs that are sick or
that have died from the infection.
Lu and Yao participated in the investigation of a
1998 outbreak of the infection in Nantong, in east China's Jiangsu
Province.
There, patients exhibited the same symptoms as
those in Sichuan of a high fever, bleeding under the skin and toxic
shock and "a few" patients died, but they did not reveal exact
figures.
Although some have blamed the current epidemic on
unsanitary conditions in small-scale pig farms combined with hot
temperatures, Yao said experts had yet to determine what
specifically triggered the outbreak.
"I hope more money and personnel will be pooled to
study the infection and find out what other animals may carry and
transmit the bacteria," he said.
The Ministry of Health issued a national guideline
yesterday explaining the symptoms of the disease, how to treat
patients and prevent and control the epidemic.
(China Daily, Xinhua News Agency July
28, 2005)