African Swine Fever continuously spread in Europe, Asia and Africa. Since the outbreak of the epidemic in China in August last year, 10 countries have been affected. After the outbreak of African swine fever in Vietnam in February this year, 63 cities have been infected and killing more than 5.6 million pigs. Taiwan has actively strengthened to prevent the spread of African swine fever since August last year. Currently, there are only Taiwan and Japan in the East Asia as non-epidemic areas. It is important to cooperate with neighboring countries to defend in the face of such a transnational infectious disease with strong contagious power. Although Taiwan has established diagnostic techniques in accordance with the standards of the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), the relevant techniques are not experimented in the actual infected organisms in infected areas.
Deputy Minister of Council of Agriculture Huang Chin-chng(黃金城) and Animal Health Research Institute proceeded meeting with representatives of Vietnam for diagnosing African Swine Fever on 22nd. Vietnam representatives explained the infected condition, treatment methods, diagnostic methods and future international cooperation of African swine fever in the country; meanwhile, Taiwan officials reported on the prevention and diagnosis of African swine fever. On 23rd, Deputy Minister of Council of Agriculture Huang Chin-chng and Vietnam Deputy Minister of MARD Dr. Le Quoc Doanh signed the MOU at Hanoi as witnessed by Taiwan Ambassador at Vietnam Shi Rei-chi(石瑞琦), the Director of the Animal Health Research Institute Chiu Chuan-zhang(邱垂章) and the Director of the National Veterinary Research Institute of Vietnam, Dr. Pham Thi Ngoc. The MOU aims to develop the technology for detection of African swine fever in the future, strengthening cooperation with immunology research and differentiating diagnosis technology. Taiwan will also utilize this opportunity to collaborate on the diagnosis of African swine fever with actual viruses.
Council of Agriculture stated that signing MOU is just a beginning. Besides of the cooperation of researching African swine fever, it will also be assisted the diagnosis of animal diseases such as foot-and-mouth disease, swine fever, vaccine research, and epidemic prevention research in the future. Under this cooperation, hoping to continuously expand the participation of researchers from both Taiwan and Vietnam and strengthen the effect of preventing the spread of disease in Asian area.
