UN Holds Emergency Meeting in Asia as China Battles African Swine Fever

UN Holds Emergency Meeting in Asia as China Battles African Swine Fever
Pigs on their way to market in Jiaxing City, Zhejiang Province, China on March 14, 2013. Peter Parks/AFP/Getty Images
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BEIJING—The United Nations is holding an emergency meeting this week with animal health experts in Asia to discuss the threat of African swine fever. The first outbreak of the disease in the region was discovered in China last month.

China has detected eight cases of the highly contagious virus since discovering the first outbreak on Aug. 3, raising concerns about its spread in the world’s largest pork producer and beyond its borders into Southeast Asia.