Food

Are Shanghai’s dead pigs linked to bird flu outbreak?

Two bird flu deaths in Shanghai prompt fresh concern over thousands of dead pigs found floating in Huangpu River
English

With no full explanation as to how thousands of pig carcasses came to be floating in the Huangpu River and now a pork trader dead from bird flu, speculation around the cause and impacts of China’s dead pig episode is rife. 

On March 31, the government reported that three cases of flu strain H7N9 had been identified in Shanghai and Anhui. Two people have died, one of them a Shanghai pork trader, prompting public fears of a link between the virus and the dead pigs in the Huangpu River.
 
The government has moved quickly to quash the concerns. Yesterday, on instructions from China’s agriculture ministry, the Shanghai Animal Disease Control Centre tested 34 samples from the dead pigs for bird flu and reported no sign of the virus.
 
But according to Taiwanese tabloid Want Daily, Chinese netizens remain suspicious. The first discovery of pig corpses in the Huangpu River happened close to the time the victims were infected and dying, and one of the deceased was a Shanghai pork trader. Moreover, the Shanghai government has not reported any poultry deaths in the city or signs of bird flu transmission, and so many believe the virus came from elsewhere.
 
Guangzhou journalist Zhao Shilong expressed doubts that the public had been told the truth, alluding back to official secrecy surrounding the SARS outbreak in 2003. “They say he died of bird flu, but he sells pork – so what did all the pigs in the river die of?” he asked on his microblog. “They just say there’s nothing to worry about. Nothing’s been learned from all the upset over the SARS cover-up a decade ago, not one bit of progress!”
 
Concerns have also been raised over food safety. China Enterprise News reported that, in the past, large quantities of already dead pigs – as opposed to pigs to be slaughtered for food – were sold to Shanghai: “You Shanghai folk have no idea how many dead pigs you’ve eaten,” said one restaurant boss.
 
However, when asked today if the public could trust the pork and chicken on sale in Shanghai, chair of the Shanghai Agricultural Commission Yin Ou said “currently, pork and chicken on sale in Shanghai can be safely eaten.”

 

-->
Cookies Settings

Dialogue Earth uses cookies to provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser. It allows us to recognise you when you return to Dialogue Earth and helps us to understand which sections of the website you find useful.

Required Cookies

Required Cookies should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

Dialogue Earth - Dialogue Earth is an independent organisation dedicated to promoting a common understanding of the world's urgent environmental challenges. Read our privacy policy.

Cloudflare - Cloudflare is a service used for the purposes of increasing the security and performance of web sites and services. Read Cloudflare's privacy policy and terms of service.

Functional Cookies

Dialogue Earth uses several functional cookies to collect anonymous information such as the number of site visitors and the most popular pages. Keeping these cookies enabled helps us to improve our website.

Google Analytics - The Google Analytics cookies are used to gather anonymous information about how you use our websites. We use this information to improve our sites and report on the reach of our content. Read Google's privacy policy and terms of service.

Advertising Cookies

This website uses the following additional cookies:

Google Inc. - Google operates Google Ads, Display & Video 360, and Google Ad Manager. These services allow advertisers to plan, execute and analyze marketing programs with greater ease and efficiency, while enabling publishers to maximize their returns from online advertising. Note that you may see cookies placed by Google for advertising, including the opt out cookie, under the Google.com or DoubleClick.net domains.

Twitter - Twitter is a real-time information network that connects you to the latest stories, ideas, opinions and news about what you find interesting. Simply find the accounts you find compelling and follow the conversations.

Facebook Inc. - Facebook is an online social networking service. China Dialogue aims to help guide our readers to content that they are interested in, so they can continue to read more of what they enjoy. If you are a social media user, then we are able to do this through a pixel provided by Facebook, which allows Facebook to place cookies on your web browser. For example, when a Facebook user returns to Facebook from our site, Facebook can identify them as part of a group of China Dialogue readers, and deliver them marketing messages from us, i.e. more of our content on biodiversity. Data that can be obtained through this is limited to the URL of the pages that have been visited and the limited information a browser might pass on, such as its IP address. In addition to the cookie controls that we mentioned above, if you are a Facebook user you can opt out by following this link.

Linkedin - LinkedIn is a business- and employment-oriented social networking service that operates via websites and mobile apps.