The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs urged local authorities across China to step up efforts for prevention and control of African swine fever and ensure the supply of pork.

Although progress has been made in fighting the disease, China faces severe challenges in preventing the rebound of outbreaks due to extensive spread of the virus across China, increased risk of epidemic import from overseas and inadequate implementation of disease control and prevention measures in some places, Han Changfu, agricultural minister, said at a national video conference on Tuesday.

While implementing existing epidemic control and prevention measures, local authorities should optimize epidemic screening mechanisms, ensure effective testing in key areas and pig farms and establish a weekly epidemic report system, Han said.

Authorities should also intensify supervision in slaughtering of pigs and proper disposal of sick pigs, and guide sizeable pig raisers to implement epidemic control and prevention measures.

More efforts are also needed to strengthen the animal epidemic control system and empower animal epidemic control capacity at the grassroots level, he said.

At the conference, senior officials from the Ministry of Public Security and Ministry of Transport ordered their branches across China to closely cooperate and conduct joint operations to effectively supervise transport of hogs and punish legal violations severely.