A warning that classical swine fever, which has led to a ban on exports of live pigs and semen from Britain, could be spread to the Irish pig herd through unlabelled processed pork was given yesterday by a leading Irish veterinary expert.
Mr William Cashman said the British difficulties highlighted the serious deficiencies in tracing pigmeat products imported into Ireland, especially when they were reprocessed and unlabelled.
Mr Cashman said that while there was no danger of human infection from the disease, it could wipe out the pig industry here if it got into the country. "CSF can survive for up to four years in frozen bone marrow and in products like Parma ham it can survive for 300 days. It is also resistant to freezing and salting, common methods of pigmeat preservation.
"A recently-published report commissioned by the pigmeat research group within IBEC has highlighted serious deficiencies in tracing pigmeat products imported into Ireland," the Cork vet said in a statement.
"It cites non-compliance with labelling directives as particularly disturbing," he added.
"While the industry is primarily focused on losses arising from animal deaths and employment, it is clear that other agents, possibly of public health significance, could gain entry and become established unless all product can be identified definitively and traced throughout the entire food chain to the final consumer."
There are five confirmed and 10 possible cases of the disease in East Anglia, and a further three sites in the East Midlands are being investigated. Some 15,000 pigs have been slaughtered and up to 75,000 more cannot be moved to markets. This is expected to create an opening for Irish product in the British market over the next few weeks.