Fujian tainted-meat scandal suggests flaws in food-safety system

Currently, the two veterinarians in the town’s veterinary medical center are responsible for the registration of the dead and sick pigs, but it’s impossible for them to follow every incident, Yang said.

The website xinhuanet.com reported that after the case was exposed, Zhangzhou city government launched a campaign to check and update the figure of sick and dead pigs in every county.

As of May 2, Nanjing county had dispatched 787 people, checking 18 freezers and disposing of 2,900 sick and dead pigs.

Government departments of agriculture, animal husbandry, quality supervision and industry and commerce administration should collaborate with each other to establish a mechanism to avoid loopholes in food safety supervision, especially in rural areas, xinhuanet.com quoted a source in Zhangzhou food safety office as saying.

The Zhangzhou case has been listed as one of the top 10 food safety cases related to meat product by the Ministry of Public Security.

Two swine diseases, which are highly contagious and fatal to the animals, were tested positive during a test conducted by the local animal disease control and prevention center.

An earlier rumor said that the pork has entered the market of Fujian’s neighboring province of Jiangxi, but the Fuzhou-based newspaper the Strait News quoted a source with the Fujian provincial public security department as saying that such an allegation has no factual basis.

Some details, including the exact destinations the tainted pork has gone to and whether there is a mastermind behind the case, are still under investigation.