The World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) issued a notice Aug. 16 that China found its second outbreak of African swine fever (ASF) at a slaughterhouse in central Henan province.

According to a Reuters report, the outbreak occurred at a slaughterhouse owned by WH Group.

Reuters said China's Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Affairs issued a statement noting that the pigs had traveled thousands of kilometers from a farm in Jiamusi city in China’s northeastern province of Heilongjiang to the plant in Zhengzhou, China.

Local authorities suspended operations and sealed off the slaughterhouse, which is controlled by China’s largest pork processor, Henan Shuanghui Investment & Development, a subsidiary of WH Group, a WH spokeswoman confirmed with Reuters.

The outbreak comes almost two weeks after Liaoning, another northeastern province, culled thousands of pigs after the discovery of China’s first case of ASF.

The agriculture ministry did not name the company in Zhengzhou, but Shuanghui Investment & Development reported earlier on Thursday that it had discovered a suspected case of the disease, a director of the Heilongjiang Provincial Animal Husbandry & Veterinary Bureau told Reuters.

Heilongjiang authorities were investigating whether the pigs were infected in the northeastern province bordering Russia. The provincial veterinary official said it wasn’t clear where or how the pigs in Zhengzhou caught the disease, according to Reuters.

“We have sent two batches of experts from the (Heilongjiang) province and central government to Tangyuan this morning, where the suspected outbreak was reported,” the official said.

According to Reuters, the vast distance the pigs in Henan traveled — some 2,300 km (1,440 miles) southwest from Heilongjiang to central China — highlights the challenge China's central government has in controlling the highly contagious disease in the country’s vast hog population and beyond its borders.

Henan is China’s second-largest pig production province and is a big supplier to nearby Shandong, Sichuan and Hubei provinces.

“The issue is quite serious now that the disease just hit the center of pig production,” Yao Guiling, an analyst at consultancy China-America Commodity Data Analytics, told Reuters. “The outbreak might be more severe than just the two cases that have been confirmed.”

ASF is one of the most devastating diseases to affect swine herds. It occurs among pigs and wild boars, transmitted by ticks and direct contact between animals, and its effects are often deadly. There is no vaccine.