African swine fever has been found across Indonesia, with officials warning of further spread and urging the pig industry to take extra precautions.
The virus has been detected in 32 of Indonesia’s 38 provinces, according to Sahat Panggabean of Indonesia’s quarantine agency, Reuters reports.
He said the highest density of cases were in the provinces of East Nusa Tenggara, North Kalimantan, South Sulawesi and Riau, and urged leaders in those areas to boost awareness and report more cases to authorities.
“We provide specific lands to dispose, as well as incinerators to burn the carcasses,” he told a livestreamed weekly meeting of the government, urging communities to avoid throwing infected or dead pigs into rivers.
Panggabean did not provide an estimate for the number of pigs that had died of the disease in Indonesia this year, but said 6,273 hogs had died of the disease in January in Central Papua province and a further 136 had died there in October. In Papua province there were 220 deaths in February, he said.
Last year, Indonesia reported an outbreak that had killed 35,297 pigs in a herd of 285,034 on the Riau Islands near Singapore, the report added.