Eight officials from east China's Jiangxi Province have been dismissed for negligence, over sales of pork from pigs that were sick, or had already died.

The move follows a recent China Central Television report revealing that potentially unsafe pork from Gao'an City entered markets in at least seven provinces.

Local police departments have investigated and punished the pig farms and slaughterhouses mentioned in the report, and launched an overall check into all farms and slaughterhouses in the city.

Luo Xusheng is an official from Gao'an.

"The public security departments have already detained 12 suspects, destroyed an illegal slaughtering site, and sealed a slaughterhouse."

A joint work team from the Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of Public Security has also arrived in the city to further investigate the case.

Gao'an is one of China's major pork producers with more than 2 million pigs slaughtered every year.