Build at least one safe African swine fever free production chain

To combat African swine fever, Binh Dinh issued the 2021-2025 Disease Prevention and Control Plan to proactively monitor the early detection and timely application of disease prevention and control measures to protect swine in the region.

The plan sets the specific target that over 90% of the municipalities, districts and cities in Binh Dinh will be free of African swine fever in the first year of implementation. In the next 2 years, over 95% of townships, counties and cities did not have this disease, over 99% of townships, counties and cities did not have ASF in the last 2 years of plan implementation.

According to Mr. Dao Van Hung, deputy director of the Binh Dinh Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the locality is committed to building at least one chain of livestock and pork products that are safe and free from African swine fever to meet food standards. used in water. There are 100% of large farms, 90% of medium-sized farms and 80% of small farms using biosecurity measures.

The plan stipulates that when there is no epidemic, medium-sized and large livestock farms must implement biosecurity measures and good husbandry practices well. Small livestock farms and small farmers routinely practice good hygiene practices, spraying disinfectants and poisons to destroy pathogens, including African swine fever virus.

According to Mr. Hung, the functional sector must regularly organize cleaning and disinfection in pig breeding areas, markets, trading and slaughterhouses. After each market meeting, each slaughter case must also be sanitized and disinfected according to hygiene and disease control procedures. Clean, sanitize and sanitize both people and vehicles inside and outside the breeding area. Implementation of environmental disinfection and sterilization campaigns launched by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

In addition, based on the actual situation, municipalities actively organize the implementation of cleaning, disinfection and sterilization to destroy pathogens around livestock. If an epidemic occurs, general cleaning, disinfection and decontamination must be carried out once a day at the outbreak and epidemic area within the first week; 3 times/week for the next 2 weeks; The buffer zones adjacent to disease-prone areas will carry out general cleaning, disinfection and sterilization at a frequency of once a week continuously until the end of the outbreak.

“Activities to control the transport and trade of pigs and pig products must strictly comply with the transport quarantine procedures, regulations and guidelines of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. Disinfect and disinfect vehicles, means of transport and people involved in transport. Arrange for sampling of suspected cases of pigs and pig products suspected of transmitting the disease to identify them promptly and treat them thoroughly to ensure they do not spread the disease.

Organizations and individuals must notify them promptly when signs of disease are detected by local authorities and households, especially the disposal of dead pig carcasses into the environment, the phenomenon of selling sick pigs and non-compliance with regulations,” said Mr. Dao Van Hung.

Pioneering pilot vaccination by NAVET ASFVAC

According to Mr. Huynh Ngoc Diep, Director of Animal Breeding and Veterinary Department of Binh Dinh, Vietnam is the first country in the world to successfully produce an African swine fever vaccine that meets the technical requirements and ensures guaranteed sterility, safety and immunological efficacy for 6 months. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development tasked the Department of Animal Health with overseeing the testing of the vaccine in two phases ahead of mass vaccination.

In Phase 1, the pilot vaccination of the NAVET ASFVAC vaccine will be carried out in a narrow range, with the number of vaccines expected to be allowed to use 600,000 doses with many sizes, from less than 500 animals, from 500 to 1,000 animals, from 1,000 to 5,000 animals and over 5,000 pigs in 24 localities.

Pigs selected for pilot injection are between 8 and 12 weeks of age, pigs are reared on animal farms to ensure disease safety, have contracts to monitor sampling and verify the effectiveness of vaccines after vaccination.

The pilot injection of the NAVET ASFVAC vaccine is prescribed by the Department of Animal Health and supervised by experts. Phase 2: After the Phase 1 evaluation report on the use of the NAVET ASFVAC vaccine, the Ministry of Animal Health reported to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to direct the use of the vaccine at the national level.

“Viral diseases, which can only be prevented by vaccines, are the most effective and the least expensive. As soon as the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development announced the successful production of the commercial vaccine NAVET ASFVAC and the pilot phase 1 with 600,000 doses, Binh Dinh signed up to purchase 100,000 doses for testing. So far, Binh Dinh has vaccinated 905 pigs with NAVET ASFVAC vaccine, the currently vaccinated pigs are responding well and in normal condition,” said Huynh Ngoc Diep.

Diep added that the characteristics of the African swine fever virus are the ability to survive in the environment for a long time, the transmission route is very complicated, and the risk of the disease continuing to appear and spread is very high if there is no vaccine . effective disease prevention. While farming households make up a large proportion in Binh Dinh, many of which have not yet ensured biosecure animal husbandry, the risk of disease occurrence is very high.

Also according to Mr. Diep, African swine fever is not contagious to humans, it only occurs in pigs with rapid spread to all pigs and a high mortality rate of up to 100%. Although the disease is caused by African swine fever virus, infected pigs, even if cured, can carry the virus for a long time and become carriers of the disease for life.

Therefore, once the herd has infected pigs, it is difficult to completely eliminate the pathogen. When the Navetco Central Veterinary Medicine Joint Stock Company actively and successfully manufactured an African swine fever vaccine, it boded well for pig farmers across the country.

According to Mr. Dao Van Hung, deputy director of the Binh Dinh Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Binh Dinh’s livestock industry has grown in recent years and built many brands. The livestock sector has accounted for 36.6% of the total value of the agricultural sector and has always been growing at 5-6% per year. In the coming period, the restructuring of agriculture and animal husbandry will focus on three main livestock, namely pigs, chickens and cows, forming link chains, requiring investment to build processing plants, and deploying the Hill Chicken project.

Mr. Dao Van Hung, Deputy Director of Binh Dinh Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development: “Although Binh Dinh has 14 factories producing branded animal feed with a planned capacity of 3.2 million tons/year, but in the past due to the continuous increase of feed prices, which affects the development of livestock farming, but fortunately, the price of live pigs is at a high level recently, so that people have the courage to herd new.

Binh Dinh has called on the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to issue specific guidelines and regulations so that municipalities can have a basis to strengthen the district-level veterinary system under the Veterinary Medicine Law under Resolution No. 42/NQ-CP dated 18. June 2019 of the Government and Resolution No. 414/QD-TTg of 22 March 2021 of the Prime Minister approving the “Project to strengthen the capacity of the system of specialized veterinary authorities at all levels in the period 2021-2030” .