Yesterday, this blog posted an article on the outbreak of "blue ear" disease in Hongdong County of Shanxi Province, wondering why no information was being disseminated by the Ministry of Agriculture. Sometime later that day, MOA posted an article from the Ministry Press Office on its web site announcing the outbreak and assuring us that the Minister and Vice Minister were paying close attention. The Ministry's article says the outbreak is highly pathogenic blue ear disease. This means they are taking it seriously.
They have sent a work team to Shanxi. The area has been sealed off and disinfected. They are investigating the spread of the disease in villages, farms, and slaughterhouses, and they claim to have vaccinated 81,000 pigs. They claim no sick or diseased pork has reached the market, but another article says that one sick pig did get sold.
Still no information posted on other agriculture information sites. China's animal disease control center's web site thought it was more important that people know about a bird flu death in Egypt and a foot-and-mouth outbreak in Southern Iraq.
Retired USDA economist Fred Gale peers through the "dim sums" of puzzling data that don't add up to provide insight about China's agricultural markets in bite-size pieces like Chinese "dim sum" snacks.
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