China confirms new African swine fever outbreak in Guangxi

[July 05, 2019]  BEIJING (Reuters) - China's agriculture ministry said on Friday it had confirmed an African swine fever outbreak in Luchuan county in the southwestern region of Guangxi that killed nine pigs on a farm.

China has reported 143 outbreaks of the incurable disease since August last year, and culled almost 1.2 million pigs.

Many outbreaks are not reported, farmers have told Reuters, and as many as half of China's breeding pigs may have died or been slaughtered because of the spreading disease, industry insiders have estimated.

(Reporting by Dominique Patton; editing by Darren Schuettler)

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