Dr. John Carr, international livestock consultant when posed with the question of how you stop African Swine Fever said a fascinating question.
“How do I stop it? I don’t know. I don’t have a vaccine. I don’t have the clinical science of death. I don’t have much warning,” said Dr. Carr. “Stop it. Well, we haven’t stopped it so far. In some respects, what has happened in other countries, it takes about ten years, and then the control programs do seem to kick in.”
He said with this disease around forever including cases in Europe, in Brazil, in the Dominican Republic, and the prevailing standard in Africa.
“I’ve farmed a lot of pigs in Africa over the years, but it is a major reason why the African continent doesn’t have major pig farms. Because this one pathogen wipes you out, so it still tends to be very pastoral farming. It’s normal in the African pigs,” he said.
Dr. Carr said it moves from place to place through pork.
“This is effectively a pig kissing disease. People have no direct involvement in its spread, apart from the fact
that we will move pork products,” he said. “We will move pork manure, and we will move pork blood, we will move pig saliva. We, ourselves, cannot transmit this disease. AFS is a disease that we will carry; it is not a disease that we have. It has no impact at all on humanity. But, if we act as what’s called a vector, we will move this virus. The pig itself will move the virus, but pigs are fairly lazy creatures. They can walk about 15 kilometres a night. If that gilt looks pretty, he’ll walk 15 kilometres a night. But most of them are pretty idle. They’ll move half a kilometre or they’ll probably stay at home.”
Human beings, on the other hand, will travel at a hundred kilometres an hour with a ham sandwich.
“If we then throw that ham sandwich out the window ’cause you don’t like the crust, and with it, you throw out some ham, and a wild pig eats that pork on the roadside then it can get African Swine Fever if contaminated,” he said.
While Dr. Carr is not yet personally concerned for the Canadian industry because the distance is far; Pigs are not going to swim across the Pacific, he does have a significant personal concern with stopping it before it gets here.
“However, what I am asking for is that our border security people enhance their use of dogs, enhance their questioning. I wouldn’t mind seeing more posters up about African Swine Fever at the airports,” he said. “I came in a week ago, and they asked me about my shoes and things, it’s all fantastic, but I had come through Hong Kong, albeit the airport, but I’d come through Hong Kong. They never asked me had I been to China, and they never asked me whether I was a pig vet. They never asked me whether I was bringing any pork in. I think we could enhance our border awareness a little bit. I think having some posters up to alert people coming in would help too.”
Dr. Carr said Canadians are great friends of China and great friends of Hong Kong. “We have Vancouver, which has many great Chinese people. The trouble with people is that Mom’s cooking is always better than anything you can buy and, sadly, in this case, if Mom makes delicious sausages, please leave them in China. Don’t be bringing them to Canada. It’s at that point we need to enhance our bio-security.” •
— By Harry Siemens
