Pig farm near inter-Korean border tests negative for ASF

A suspected case of African swine fever at a farm near the border with North Korea tested negative, the agriculture ministry said Sunday.

Samples of two dead pigs at the farm in Pocheon, just north of Seoul, showed the pigs were not infected with the highly contagious disease. The farm was raising about 1,300 pigs, according to the ministry.

Tests are under way on another suspected case of African swine fever reported in Boryeong, some 160 kilometers southwest of Seoul, the ministry said.

South Korea has been implementing seamless disinfection efforts to stem the outbreak of ASF, including extending a lockdown on northern areas of the country and culling more pigs as part of preventive measures.

In less than three weeks since the country’s first-ever outbreak of the deadly animal disease, South Korea has confirmed 13 ASF cases.

The ministry said earlier the extended standstill on all farms of Gyeonggi and Gangwon provinces currently in place was lifted earlier in the day.

“We need to step up disinfection efforts in the regions that reported confirmed cases … and vehicles moving in and out of them need to be controlled,” Agriculture Minister Kim Hyeon-soo said in a meeting with related officials.

While South Korea has been culling all pigs in a 3-kilometer radius of infected farms, the ministry said it aims to purchase all pigs outside that boundary in Paju and Gimpo to send them to slaughterhouses.

In a similar move, the ministry earlier culled all pigs on Ganghwa Island, located northwest of Seoul, where five of the confirmed cases were reported.

South Korea had culled more than 130,000 pigs as of Sunday morning, with the figure anticipated to exceed 150,000 when the remaining pigs are slaughtered.