(Bloomberg) -- North Korea reported its first African swine fever cases, signaling the eastward movement of a pig disease that’s devastated China’s pork industry, and adding to fears of severe hunger in the rogue state.
Seventy-seven hogs on the Buksang cooperative farm in Chagang-Do province, about 260 kilometers (160 miles) north of Pyongyang, died in an outbreak that began May 23, North Korea’s ministry of agriculture said in a report Thursday to the World Organization for Animal Health. Another 22 pigs were culled to stem the spread of the viral hemorrhagic disease, which had been suspected of circulating in the country since mid-February.
Widespread transmission of African swine fever, which isn’t known to harm humans but kills most pigs in a week, could worsen food shortages in North Korea after the country’s worst harvest in a decade left 10.1 million people with insufficient food supplies.
A United Nations food security assessment last month found “worryingly low food consumption levels, limited dietary diversity and families being forced to cut meals or eat less” following a series of dry spells, heat waves and flooding that contributed to a food deficit of 1.36 million metric tons.
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