FACTBOX-Flu triggers pig and pork import bans worldwide

May 4 (Reuters) - Twenty countries have banned imports of pigs, pork and other meat in response to the H1N1 flu strain that has infected both people and swine, according to the World Health Organisation.

Following is a list of the bans, as well as the measures taken by countries that have not blocked imports in response to the outbreak, which health and trade officials say is not food-borne and does not pose a danger to meat consumers:



RUSSIA

-- Pork banned from Guatemala, Honduras, Dominican Republic, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Nicaragua, Panama, El Salvador.

-- All meat and meat products banned from Mexico and the U.S. states of California, Texas, and Kansas.

CHINA

-- Live pigs and pork products banned from Mexico and the U.S. states of California, Texas and Kansas.

SERBIA 

-- Pigs and pork banned from Mexico and the United States.

THAILAND

-- Live pigs banned from Mexico and the United States.

JORDAN 

-- All meat banned from countries with confirmed H1N1 cases.

PHILIPPINES

-- Pigs and pork products banned from Mexico and the United States.

UKRAINE

-- Pork banned from Mexico and the U.S. states of California, Texas and Kansas. 

INDONESIA

-- Pork banned. No details given, unclear if only from Mexico and the United States or from around the world.

LEBANON

-- Pigs and pork banned from affected countries. Measure orders destruction of cargo en route from affected countries, the closure of domestic pig farms, the prohibition of pig slaughter and the blood testing for all pigs.

AZERBAIJAN

-- Livestock products banned from North America.

BAHRAIN

-- Pork products banned from Mexico, the United States and any country with reported H1N1 cases.

CROATIA

-- Pork banned from North America, plus any country with confirmed cases.

ECUADOR

-- Pork banned from Mexico and the United States.

KAZAKHSTAN

-- Pork banned from Mexico and the United States.

MACEDONIA

-- Pork banned from North America and countries with confirmed cases.

MONTENEGRO 

-- Pork banned from North America and countries with confirmed cases.

SURINAM

-- Animals, raw pork and semen imports banned (no further details given)

SWITZERLAND

-- Pork from Canada, Mexico, New Zealand, and United States

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

-- Pork banned for both import and sale (no details given)

BELARUS

-- Meat banned from seven countries (not specified)

-- Cattle, poultry and feed banned from Canada, Mexico, the United States, New Zealand, Spain, France, and Israel.

SOUTH KOREA

-- No ban imposed. Increased number of flu virus checks on pork products from Mexico and the United States.

EUROPEAN UNION

-- No ban imposed and no change to import policy, given "flu has nothing to do with food chain".

JAPAN

-- No ban imposed. Checks of live pig imports for infection. No checks on imported pork "as no risk when cooked".

KOSOVO

-- No ban imposed. Increased import monitoring (no details). (For related story, please see: [L4584168]) (For more Reuters swine flu coverage, please click here:here )

© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved

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Pork Safe To Eat, Pig Farmers Say

Monday, 27 April, 2009 - 20:13

Wellington, April 27 NZPA - Consumers should not be put off eating pork because swine flu is not spread through food, the pork industry said today.

Pork New Zealand said that though the H1N1 influenza A virus, called swine flu, may have originated in pigs, it was a human health risk because it was being transmitted from human to human.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) had confirmed that it was safe to eat all pork products, the industry said in a statement.

"Swine influenza has not been shown to be transmissible to people through eating properly handled and prepared pork," the WHO said.

"Swine influenza virus is killed by cooking temperatures of 70degC."

Though New Zealand has never recorded a case of swine flu in farmed pigs, the pork industry said today it was reminding farmers to be vigilant around disinfecting and cleaning, visitor access to farms and to "ensure staff do not work with pigs if they have flu-like symptoms".

Any unusual pig health issues should be discussed with a veterinarian, a spokesman for Pork NZ said.

Symptoms of swine flu in pigs included sudden onset of fever, depression, coughing discharge from the nose or eyes, sneezing, breathing difficulties, eye redness or inflammation, and loss of appetite.

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Blue-ear pig disease now under control

Blue-ear pig disease has been brought under control thanks to the introduction of a series of tough measures to combat diseases in cattle and poultry on a nationwide scale, according to the Department of Animal Health, under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

This disease broke out in Quang Nam province in February and spread quickly to 31 communes in such 4 districts of Dien Ban, Que Son, Thang Binh and Duy Xuyen, infecting 3,000 pigs. However, on April 11, the province announced that it had dealt with the outbreak successfully and had put it under control.

Meanwhile, Bac Giang province has been taken off the national list of provinces infected with foot-and-mouth disease but Kon Tum and Son La provinces have still reported cases of the disease in the last 21 days.

Now bird flu is only existent in Dien Bien province.

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MISHAP: Elderly motorist, who told police he confused the gas and brake pedals, drives vehicle into a window.

5 hurt in RB accident

MISHAP: Elderly motorist, who told police he confused the gas and brake pedals, drives vehicle into a window.

By Larry Altman, Staff Writer
Posted: 03/29/2009 07:18:29 PM PDT

An 88-year-old motorist mistook his accelerator for the brake, struck several sidewalk diners and drove his car halfway into a Redondo Beach restaurant Sunday.

Five people went to hospitals for treatment of minor injuries, Redondo Beach police Sgt. Peter Grimm said. More photos

Workers clear debris after a car went over the sidewalk and through the front window of the Ham Supreme Shops restaurant in Redondo Beach on Sunday. Five people were injured. (Steve McCrank / Staff Photographer)

The accident occurred just after 2 p.m. as the elderly Redondo Beach resident tried to park his Jaguar outside Ham Supreme in a shopping center at Pacific Coast Highway and Carnelian Street.

"There were a lot of people there," Grimm said. "The potential for a serious accident was huge. It was hot. It was sunny out. People were strolling in the area. It could have been a lot worse."

The driver told police he was attempting to park his car when he mistook the gas pedal for the brake and lurched forward.

His car struck several people eating at tables on the sidewalk outside Ham Supreme and smashed through a window of the restaurant.

Inside, the car struck several diners and shoved them through a stucco wall into a neighboring tutoring business called Score, trapping them inside.

After the vehicle hit Ham Supreme, it pushed diners through a wall into a nearby business. Officers had to break through a window to free the patrons. (Steve McCrank / Staff Photographer)

Responding police officers, including one who witnessed the crash while patrolling in the parking lot at the time, had to smash the front window of the tutoring business to free the restaurant patrons.

Despite the destructive crash, no one was seriously hurt, Grimm said.

The elderly driver, whose name was not released, was not hurt.

Police confiscated his keys and towed his car, which will be examined to determine if the vehicle had any mechanical problems. The driver told officers the crash was his fault, police said.

The driver was not arrested. Police will file a report with the California Department of Motor Vehicles for his license to be reviewed.

"The Redondo Beach Police Department drove him home," Grimm said.

Pig escapes from truck on highway, but is shot

March 30, 2009

A pig on its way to a slaughterhouse managed to break free on the Pennsylvania Turnpike's Northeast Extension on Sunday, but paid a painful and deadly price for its brief moments of freedom.

State police at Pocono say a trooper shot and killed the pig on the side of the road, near mile marker 80 in Penn Forrest Township, because the pig was injured and bleeding. Troopers said the pig could have also created havoc on the highway by running back into traffic.

The pig was one of many in a truck headed to a slaughterhouse. One or more of the pigs managed to push a gate away from the truck's body and the one that escaped slipped out and onto the road shortly after 11 a.m. Police said it's unusual for a pig to get out of such a truck.

Police say the truck driver, who will not be cited or charged with any violation, took the dead pig with him.

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450,000 Shekel Fine to Pig Farm Owners for Water Pollution

Updated: 03/02/2009

On February 22, 2009, the Acre Magistrate's Court convicted the owners of a pig farm to the east of the Mi'ilya local council in northern Israel of operating a pig sty without a business license and of polluting water sources. The defendants were convicted of allowing pig farm wastes to flow untreated into unsealed earth pools, from where they overflowed to open space, littering the public domain and endangering water sources with pollution. In addition, wastewater was discharged from the pools to open space, using leaking pipes, and pig carcasses were discarded on the ground. The defendants were convicted of violations under the Water Law, 1959, the Water Regulations (Prevention of Water Pollution) (Evaporation and Collection Ponds), 1977, the Licensing of Businesses Law, 1968 and the Maintenance of Cleanliness Law, 1984. Court Sentence Defendant 1 was given a suspended imprisonment sentence of three months for a three year period on condition he does not contravene provisions of the Business Licensing Law and the Water Law. He was fined 350,000 shekels or 30 months of imprisonment in lieu of the fine. He was also required to sign a financial obligation in the sum of 300,000 or 30 months of imprisonment to refrain from a similar offense under the Water Law for three years. Defendant 2 was fined 100,000 shekels or 12 months imprisonment in lieu of the fine. He signed a financial obligation of 100,000 shekels or 12 months imprisonment to refrain from a similar offense under the Water Law for three years. The total fine, in the sum of 450,000 shekels, will be paid to the Cleanliness Maintenance Fund. The court also issued a judicial shutdown order against the pig farm, requiring the defendants to immediately shut down operations in the farm, in light of the fact that the business operates without a license and causes environmental hazards, as well as due to the fact that a temporary shutdown order was issued against the farm within the framework of interim procedures. In his sentence, the judge emphasized that "offenses that damage the environment are not to be belittled and damage to the landscape, to land and to water sources, is, at times, irreversible. Therefore, significant penalties should be imposed on anyone who continuously harms our life sources - air and water." The judge went on to state that "the offenses in the case should also be viewed in terms of their economic-profit aspects since the defendants were able to draw real profits from operating the business in this way, and therefore it is only right that high fines should be imposed on the defendants...in order to deter continued offenses."  Source

Arizona needs to put an end to barbaric sport

15 commentsMar. 2, 2009 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

Most people have never heard of something called "hog-dogging."

Once you know about it, we think you'll support banning it.

It's an event in which a trained attack dog is set on a pig. Much like dog fighting, people bet on the outcome. Some even take their children to see animals painfully injured.

Kathleen Mayer, legislative liaison for the Pima County Attorney's Office, says the dogs, usually pit bulls, are trained to go after the ears, groin and thighs of the more-or-less defenseless pigs.

The pigs don't always die. Injured animals are used over and over. In one event, she says, there were 95 dogs and 19 pigs.

Law enforcement has known about hog-dog fighting for two or three years, but little can be done to stop it. Statutes specifically ban dog fighting, not dog-hog fighting.

Sen. Jonathan Paton and Rep. Kyrsten Sinema want to change that. They have bills that would expand current statutes that make dog fighting a class 5 felony to include all animals. Basically, that means replacing the word "dog" in statute with the word "animal."

Then law enforcement could go after the organizers of these barbaric events.

Sinema's bill, House Bill 2150, passed the House Judiciary Committee unanimously. Paton's bill, Senate Bill 1115, is being held along with all other Senate bills until the budget is done.

Arizona needs to update its laws to ban this nasty form of animal cruelty.

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Blue-ear pig epidemic hits three Vietnamese provinces

www.chinaview.cn  2009-03-02 13:23:53

HANOI, March 2 (Xinhua) -- A blue-ear epidemic in pigs is developing in three Vietnamese provinces, resulting in nearly a thousand of pigs being infected with the blue-ear virus, said the Department of Animal Health under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development on Monday.     In northern province Quang Ninh, the disease infected about 50 pigs raised on two local farms, said the department.     In central province Quang Nam, the virus is plaguing pig farms in 20 communes of four districts, causing the culling of nearly 700 pigs, said the department.     Meanwhile the disease broke out recently in the Mekong Delta province of Bac Lieu, infecting 13 pigs with the blue-ear virus, said the department.     The ministry vows to speed up measures to prevent diseases in livestock this year.

Editor: Xiong Tong

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Pork producers enjoy banquet

By Linda Wenger

02/23/2009

	Iowa Pork Princess Jessie Droppert of Hudson (left) and Washington County Pork Queen Natalie Friese (right), also Iowa Pork Queen, enjoy a turn at the wheel of a 2009 Pork Racing simulator that was displayed at the Washington County Pork Producers 2009 M Members of the No. 1 county in the nation for Pork Producer membership enjoyed their 2009 Membership Banquet, Saturday night, at the Riverside Casino. More than 140 people attended the Washington County Pork Producers event, which included a cocktail hour and a buffet dinner featuring pork loin, twice baked potatoes, pasta primavera, salad and a choice of desserts.       Two members spoke briefly about the challenges pork producers will face in the future - retired Iowa Representative Sandra Greiner and her son, Iowa Pork Producer District Director Shaun Greiner.       Mike Berdo, the 2008-09 president, introduced Sandra Greiner. He told the crowd that Greiner is most proud of the bills that never saw the light of day while she was a member of the Iowa Legislature. She served in the House and Senate for a total of 16 years.       "We are in the midst of change and we're going to have to adapt," Sandra Greiner said.        Shaun Greiner told his fellow members, "Things are not going to get easier for us down the road."        Shaun spoke briefly about meat packing plants that are going to require hog producers to become Pork Quality Assurance Plus (PQA) and Transportation Quality Assurance (TQA) certified. He suggested that pork producers complete site inspections soon in order to qualify as PQA and TQA producers before the end of the year.       According to Shaun, Washington County Pork Producers has more than 200 members, making the county No. 1 in Iowa and the nation.        For the full story, see the Feb. 23 edition of The Washington Evening Journal Source

Texas may let hunters shoot pigs from choppers

By Paul J. Weber

Associated Press

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Mertzon, Texas —- Millions of wild pigs weighing up to 300 pounds have been tearing up crops, trampling fences and eating just about anything in their path in Texas. But now they had better watch their hairy backs.

A state lawmaker is proposing to allow ordinary Texans with rifles and shotguns to shoot the voracious, tusked animals from helicopters.

For years, ranchers in the Lone Star State have hired professional hunters in choppers to thin the hogs’ fast-multiplying ranks. Now state Rep. Sid Miller of the Fort Worth area wants to bring more firepower to the task by issuing permits to sportsmen.

“I’ve had numerous calls and complaints that someone needs to do something,” Miller said. “We’re losing ground on this problem.”

His bill has not yet been assigned to a committee, and its chances of becoming law are uncertain. But if approved, the program could be the first of its kind in the nation. Some other states, like Alaska, allow aerial hunting, but only to control predators, such as bears and wolves.

Some Texans worry about collateral damage.

“If they’re going to open up to where you can do this and anybody who’s got a helicopter can go off to an old boy’s place and hunt, that’s going to be bad,” said Jay Smith, owner of Smith Helicopters in Cotulla. Some people “may get confused and shoot the rancher’s dog or a calf.”

Miller gave assurances the hunting would be closely regulated, though details on such things as how many hunters would be allowed to take part, and how many hogs they would be permitted to kill, have yet to be worked out.

“You’re not going to have some bubba up there going, ‘Pass me a beer and ammo’ and hunting some hogs,” the legislator said. “We certainly want to do it right.”

Many hunters and landowners will probably leave the carcasses in the field, just as they do now. Wild hogs that are gunned down cannot be sold for meat under U.S. agriculture regulations. (Moreover, wild boar is said by some to be tough and gamey.)

An estimated 2 million wild hogs are causing $52 million a year in crop damage in Texas, according to agricultural experts. Pigs that they are, they eat just about anything, including the carcasses of their own brethren. They trample crops, dig up plants with their snouts and steal animal feed. Entire peanut farms have been stripped.

And the pasture-wrecking porkers are causing trouble well beyond farms. Authorities in Texas are reporting an increase in collisions between hogs and cars, while golf courses and suburbs are increasingly finding turf uprooted by hogs.

The animals are descended from hogs introduced into Texas by Spanish explorers more than 300 years ago. But their numbers began booming in the 1980s.

The big ones have no natural predators. Not even a coyote will tangle with a pig bigger than 20 pounds.

During a recent pass in his helicopter over Mertzon in West Texas, Kyle Lange, a professional hunter who is paid to pick off wild hogs from the air in what some are calling a “pork chopper,” offered a glimpse of the magnitude of the problem.

As his helicopter flew over, several packs of hogs that had been rooting around in the brush or napping in the sun suddenly scattered in all directions, with piglets scampering to keep close to their mothers, the little hairs on their backs blown back by the breeze from the chopper.

“You can kill 300 in a day from up here in the Panhandle and you’ve just slowed them down is all,” Lange said over the whump-whump of his two-seat chopper.

Wildlife experts have tried less brutal methods to control their numbers. But the hogs are smart and have learned to avoid traps, and a birth control pill for female hogs is still in development. Many experts agree aerial hunting works.

Nearly 1,100 permits to kill hogs from the air were issued in Texas last year, up from 201 in 2000. Under Miller’s bill, weekend hunters would be able to get permits too, though they would also have to pay landowners for the right to hunt on their property.

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China: 70 ill from tainted pig organs

BEIJING, China (CNN) -- At least 70 people in one Chinese province have suffered food poisoning in recent days after eating pig organs contaminated by a banned food additive, state-run media reported Monday.

Health officials in the Guangdong province in southeast China said most were treated at hospitals and released, but at least three people remained hospitalized, the China Daily newspaper reported.

The victims complained of stomach aches and diarrhea after eating pig organs bought in local markets since Thursday, China's Xinhua news agency reported. A local health official said initial investigations indicated that the pig organs were contaminated by clenbuterol, an additive that is banned in pig feed in China.

Three people were detained for suspected involvement in raising and selling contaminated pigs, authorities said.

Clenbuterol can prevent pigs from accumulating fat but is harmful to humans and can be fatal. One of the largest food poisoning cases involving clenbuterol happened in Shanghai in September 2006, when 336 people were hospitalized after eating pig meat or organs contaminated with the additive, China Daily said.

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Pigs to be killed to curb ebola

Manila to slaughter 6,000 pigs to stop Ebola spread

The government said 6,000 pigs would be killed, burned and buried as experts sought to determine the source of Ebola-Reston in pigs as well as pig-to-pig and from pig-to-human transmission. -- PHOTO: AFP

MANILA - THE Philippines will slaughter 6,000 pigs at a hog farm north of the capital Manila to prevent the spread of the Ebola-Reston virus, health and farm officials said on Monday.

But the government has lifted a quarantine on a second hog farm after tests by experts from the World Health Organisation (WHO), World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and Food and the Agriculture Organisation (FAO) showed no more signs of the disease.

The country has more than 13 million heads of swine and the discovery of Ebola-Reston on two hog farms north of Manila was isolated, the government said.

'There is ongoing viral transmission in Bulacan ... as a precautionary measure, depopulation will be carried out in the Bulacan farm,' Health Secretary Francisco Duque told reporters, referring to the farm just north of Manila.

The government said 6,000 pigs would be killed, burned and buried as experts sought to determine the source of Ebola-Reston in pigs as well as pig-to-pig and from pig-to-human transmission. Mr Duque said 147 human samples have been tested for Ebola, but only six have tested positive. But all six remain healthy, he added.

'Ebola-Reston poses a low risk to human health at this time,' Mr Duque said.

It is the first time the virus has been found outside monkeys and the first time it has been found in pigs. The virus had previously jumped from monkeys to humans but this was the first case of a jump from hogs.

The Ebola-Reston virus was found in the Philippines as early as the late 1980s and 25 people were found infected after contact with sick monkeys. But only one developed flu-like symptoms and later recovered. -- REUTERS

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