Home>News Center>China
       
 

Veterinarians play down disease threat
By Zhao Huanxin and Zhang Feng (China Daily)
Updated: 2005-07-28 05:53

"We have the technology and procedures to bring the disease under control," a Ministry of Agriculture official, who identified himself only as Wang, said yesterday.

"For example, we have already developed pig vaccines, though we have not produced them for a long while."

Two factories, one in Guangzhou in South China's Guangdong Province and the other in Sichuan Province, are mass-producing the vaccines, said Yao Huochun, an associate professor of the College of Veterinary Medicine at Nanjing Agricultural University.

Lu Chengping, president of the graduate school of the college, said even healthy pigs commonly carry the bacteria with no threat to human health.

People are only likely to contract the disease from slaughtering or handling pigs that are sick or died from the infection, he said.

Lu and Yao participated in the investigation of a 1998 outbreak of the infection in Nantong, in East China's Jiangsu Province.

In that outbreak patients exhibited the same symptoms as those shown by victims in Sichuan high fever, bleeding under the skin and poison-related shock, they said.

According to the researchers, "a few" patients died, but they did not reveal exact figures.

Aside from through the slaughtering and processing of affected pigs, no other transmission channels have been found.

More than one month has passed since the first human infection was found, and so far no person-to-person infection has been found, said Mao Qun'an, a Ministry of Health spokesman.
Page: 123



999 roses to offer apology
Li Zhaoxing attends ASEAN+3 Foreign Ministers Meeting
Submarine drill in East China Sea
  Today's Top News     Top China News
 

NASA stops shuttle flights until hazard fixed

 

   
 

Skies open wide for pilots from abroad

 

   
 

Parties target nuke-free peninsula

 

   
 

Veterinarians play down disease threat

 

   
 

Regional co-op focus of ASEAN meeting

 

   
 

Trade surplus rocketing brings pressure

 

   
  Trade surplus rocketing brings pressure
   
  Is it time to start culling big bad wolf?
   
  House okays bill aimed at subsidized China goods
   
  RMB appreciation helps nation's airlines
   
  Higher costs force firms to look elsewhere
   
  Veterinarians play down disease threat
   
 
  Go to Another Section  
 
 
  Story Tools  
   
  Related Stories  
   
China to send pig sperm into space
   
China plans to send pig sperm into space
   
This big piggy went to the museum
   
FAO: Bird flu virus found in pigs; Viet Nam denies
   
Israelis may put pigs on guard duty
   
Priceless bronze pig head returns home
   
Pigs and chickens thrive on music
  News Talk  
  It is time to prepare for Beijing - 2008  
Advertisement