Taiwan has tightened border checks and increased inspections of local vendors and hog farms before the Lunar New Year holiday in an effort to prevent the spread of African swine fever, Council of Agriculture chief Chen Chi-chung (???) said Wednesday.

Chunghwa Post Co. and government agencies are working together to increase checks on packages sent from abroad ahead of the Jan. 29-Feb. 6 Lunar New Year holiday, a peak season for gift giving, whether through travelers entering Taiwan or online orders, according to the Central Emergency Operation Center (CEOC).

In 2021, Taiwan found pig carcasses that tested positive for the highly contagious virus on beaches in New Taipei and Kinmen. It was also found in packages sent from Thailand and smuggled pork products from Vietnam, Chen said in a statement released after a CEOC meeting he presided over on Wednesday.

Locally, the Food and Drug Administration and the Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine are inspecting more than 500 vendors to determine whether the meat products they sell pose a risk to the country’s disease prevention efforts, Chen said.

While the amount of pork products illegally brought in by travelers dropped from 89 kilograms in 2010 to 37.5kg in 2021, the number of banned items found in packages sent from abroad has increased, he added.

Illegal pork products found in such packages rose from 230.3kg in 2010 to 547.2kg in 2021, while those detected in express packages jumped from 66.2kg in 2010 to 443.2kg last year, according to Chen.

In December alone, 64 packages were found to contain pork products, with 14 testing positive for the African swine fever virus — 12 from China and two from Thailand, according to the CEOC, which was established in December 2018 to prevent the disease entering Taiwan.

The center said that since October it has inspected 2,147 small hog farms with fewer than 200 pigs and found six to be in violation of the ban on using kitchen waste as feed.

Chen urged the public not to buy or order pork products from Southeast Asia, since several countries in the region, including Vietnam, Malaysia and Timor-Leste, have reported African swine fever cases to the World Organization for Animal Health in recent years.

In addition, people should be careful if they receive packages containing pork products of unknown origin. Such packages should be handed over to the Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine or local authorities to be disposed, the CEOC said.

Vendors and e-commerce platform operators have a duty to ensure items listed online do not contain foreign animal products banned in Taiwan, the center noted.

Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel