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China reports pig disease death after giving all clear

Posted on: Monday, 22 August 2005, 22:54 CDT

BEIJING (Reuters) - A pig-borne disease that killed nearly 40 people in southwest China has claimed a victim in the far south, bordering Hong Kong, state media said on Tuesday, a day after the government said it had brought the outbreak under control.

The new death and three separate infections were reported in Guangdong province, where two cases were reported in early August, even as the China Daily praised government efforts to confine the bacterial disease to southwestern Sichuan.

"Although the losses are hard to bear, at least the disease was confined to a single province and has not triggered a major crisis," the newspaper said in a commentary.

Hong Kong Health Minister York Chow was due to fly to Beijing later on Tuesday for urgent talks on improving food safety amid a series of health scares.

News of his trip came just hours after Hong Kong said a 79-year-old woman had contracted the pig-borne disease and after more samples of fish from mainland China tested positive for a suspected cancer-causing chemical.

Most of the victims of the pig disease, caused by the Streptococcus suis bacterium, became sick after slaughtering, handling or eating infected swine.

No cases among pigs had been found in Guangdong, Xinhua news agency said, adding health and agriculture departments were taking emergency measures to prevent the disease from spreading.

Hong Kong has already banned pork imports from parts of China. The city has also seen five human cases of the disease.

The outbreak of the pig disease first surfaced in Sichuan, China's top pork-producing region, in June but was not mentioned in Chinese media until almost a month later.

But the China Daily hailed the handling of the pig disease as a marked improvement from the response to the 2002-2003 SARS outbreak, which was initially covered up and went to infect nearly 8,500 people worldwide and kill about 800.

"The SARS nightmare is history -- along with the old closed door methods," the China Daily said.

At least four officials have been sacked for trying to cover up the trail of dead pigs early in the outbreak, which made more than 200 people in the area sick.

Streptoccocus suis is endemic in most pig-rearing countries, although human infections are rare. Chinese state media has said no human-to-human infections have been found in Sichuan, but the death toll from the disease was considered unusually high.

In Hong Kong, authorities reported last week that the suspected cancer-causing chemical malachite green had been found in some fresh-water fish imported from China.

Many people are also shunning eel after Chinese media reported last week that Guangdong had banned exports after malachite green was found in eels in two provinces.

Earlier this month, China sealed off a farm in far-western Tibet and inoculated poultry within a five-km (three-mile) radius after discovering an outbreak of bird flu, believed to be a strain that has killed more than 50 people across Asia and led to the deaths of some 140 million birds.

Source: REUTERS

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