Swine Flu Wave Two, Three Underground Vaccines Widely Used

Winter seems to be slowing the spread of swine flu in the north, but there's a rebound of infections in the south. Swine herds, including sows, are still declining nationally.

财新： 特稿|养猪业复产艰难 疫情第二波疑现地下疫苗

Pigs are still decreasing. According to data released by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs on October 14, the number of live pigs in 400 monitoring counties in September 2019 decreased by 3% from the previous month, down 41.1% year-on-year; the number of capable sows decreased by 2.8% from the previous month and decreased by 38.9%. This is the third consecutive month of decline in national pig stocks after a non-defeating outbreak.

　　The good news is that in the north, the savage African swine fever virus seems to have died down. According to data from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the number of live pigs in the seven provinces of Liaoning, Shandong, Heilongjiang, Hebei, Shanxi, Gansu and Jilin increased by more than 3% in September, and eight in Gansu, Ningxia, Heilongjiang, Shandong, Tianjin, Shanghai, Beijing and Liaoning. The province's ability to breed sows increased by more than 3%. From a regional perspective, the growth of pigs in the northeast, north, northwest, and parts of the Central Plains has declined.

　　However, the southern region is still in the process of bottoming out. On July 14th, Guotai Junan reported that according to Xinmu.com, as of the end of June this year, compared with the number of pigs released in 2018, the national median pig production capacity was 50%, of which Guangdong, Guangxi, Anhui and Jiangsu decreased respectively. 70%, 75%, 70% and 85%.

　　What is worrying is that after entering the hot and humid summer, the African pig swine, the number one pig killer, has made a comeback in some areas.

Many farmers aren't waiting for the government sponsored vaccine which is in clinical trials. They've opted for one of at least three underground vaccines.

On September 10, the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences announced that the African swine fever double gene deletion vaccine has completed laboratory safety assessment and effective trials and is about to enter the clinical trial phase. However, many insiders told Caixin reporter that due to the fierce epidemic, the underground vaccine, which has not reached the commercial maturity, is also popular in the industry when the official vaccine is still in the pilot stage. At present, there are at least three kinds of “black market seedlings” in circulation. .

　　The aforementioned Jiangsu veterinary experts also said that according to his understanding, the use of underground vaccines is very large. In June and July, large pig enterprises began to use, inoculated with millions of pigs, and pig farms with negative detection of nucleic acid in Africa. The vaccine can achieve a protection rate of at least 70%, but the vaccine itself is very low in safety and can directly cause pig skin necrosis, pig death, sow abortion, abortion rate of 4%-8%; In the farms where the nucleic acid test was positive, the vaccine mortality rate was extremely high and almost disappeared.