Swine fever outbreak confirmed at farm in Miyagi Pref.

Jiji Press

15:37 JST, December 26, 2021

TOKYO (Jiji Press) — An outbreak of classical swine fever has been confirmed at a pig farm in the town of Marumori, Miyagi Prefecture, the agriculture ministry said Saturday.

The farm, which has about 7,000 pigs, including those for breeding, on Friday informed the Miyagi prefectural government of abnormalities in some 60 piglets, such as fever, and infections were confirmed Saturday, according to the prefecture.

A total of around 900 pigs that were transported from the Marumori farm or had artificial insemination using sperm from pigs at the farm are now raised at 26 farms in prefectures including Yamagata in northeastern Japan, Ibaraki, Gunma, Tochigi and Chiba in eastern Japan, and Aichi in central Japan.

Some 7,900 pigs in total will be culled in light of infection risks, according to the ministry.

The infections at the Marumori farm are the 76th CSF outbreak in Japan since the nation’s first case in 26 years was confirmed in 2018.

CSF does not transmit to humans, a ministry official said, adding that meat from infected pigs will not go on sale.