In an outcome that has sent shockwaves across the globe, it has been revealed that a devastating wave of swine fever over the last year has wiped out nearly a quarter of the world’s pig population. According to a column in the New York Times, 40% of the pig population within China was wiped out by the disease in under six months.
In the wake of the epidemic, many officials are questioning the role of China’s lax system of checks and balances in enabling the spread of devastating diseases like swine fever. Certainly, China has been under fire over the last year as a multitude of human rights abuses and stories of government corruption have come to light in the wake of protests in Hong Kong. Yet the recent swine fever epidemic may exemplify the truism that good intentions can create unforeseen negative outcomes.
As strange as it may sound, in fact, at least some scientists now attribute the spread of swine fever throughout China’s provinces to sound environmental regulation on the part of government officials: Per the New York Times, for example, efforts to regulate clean water supplies within the country last year had the unintended side effect of forcing farmers from the north of the country to transport over a hundred million pigs to China’s southern provinces. This movement of vast livestock populations across borders may have actually driven the epidemic throughout the country like a wildfire.
Moreover, the costs of reimbursing farmers who have lost extensive numbers of livestock due to the outbreak have largely fallen on the shoulders of local authorities rather than on the deep pockets of China’s central government. Those costs are said to have amounted to some $3 trillion, and undoubtedly, local government agencies will struggle to mitigate even a fraction of such expenses. ($3 trillion amounts to nearly a quarter of China’s gross domestic product.)
According to some analysts, these smaller government agencies were perforce compelled to underreport cases of swine flu in order to avoid making massive payouts to farmers. Sadly, the country is now in the grip of an outbreak that it is no longer able to manage or even afford.
The long-term effects of the swine fever epidemic remain to be seen, but the chaos that has emerged in the wake of the outbreak has shown that livestock epidemics can be truly devastating if not dealt with effectively.
