Cambodia: Pork sales plummet due to blue-ear disease

via Khmer NZ

16 Aug 2010

It has been reported that vendors in PHNOM Penh, Cambodia’s capital, have been selling up to two-thirds less pork due to consumer disease fears.

This comes as a consequence to the outbreak of blue-ear disease in the country and the warnings relayed by government officials to consumers that if pork meats from infected animals are eaten, illness (severe diarrhoea) could occur in people who have had the meat from animals which have not been cooked properly; although a United Nations official stated that the disease could not be contracted by humans.

“Before, I sold around 20 pigs per day, but now I can sell only seven or eight pigs,” said a vendor.

Earlier in the month, a ban on pig imports from Thailand and Vietnam was put in place in order to halt the spreading of the disease.