A new outbreak of African swine fever (ASF) may have been discovered in the city of Wuhu, in eastern China's Anhui province, China's Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Affairs reported through media outlets in the country.

According to the Xinhua media outlet, pigs were found dead from unknown causes on a farm in Nanling County in Wuhu when local authorities were checking for ASF Aug. 29, and the next morning, the case was confirmed as an ASF outbreak, the ministry said.

Among the 459 pigs on the farm, 185 have been affected so far, and 80 have died, the media outlet said.

The agriculture ministry has sent teams to Anhui, where local authorities have initiated an emergency response mechanism to block, cull and disinfect the affected pigs. Xinhua said the ministry has reported that the situation as "now under control."

This would be China's fifth case of ASF.

In a global disease surveillance report posted later on Aug. 30, the Swine Health Information Center (SHIC) discussed the Anhui case, noting that the "case is relatively small, especially compared to an ASF-infected farm in Romania where 140,000 pigs are being killed this week. However, the widespread nature of the reported cases continues to cause concern, as no mechanism of transmission has been reported, and conversely, potential mechanisms suggest the potential for many more cases. The trade and transport of pigs is, of course, a major concern and should be easily identified through traceback of farm inventories. Contamination of trucks, along with inadequate sanitation should also be relatively easy to trace."

SHIC said if a connection among the affected herds in China is not easily identified, "it suggests that there are other contaminated materials that are being transferred between farms, with history showing the most likely being contaminated pork products fed to pigs, people or equipment moving between farms and/or feed ingredients." SHIC added that these potential transmission routes also "increases the likelihood that other countries, including the U.S., can also be affected. This risk is exemplified by the fact that South Korea detected evidence of the virus in foods containing pork that were brought in by airline passengers coming back from Shenyang," China, on Aug. 3.

The SHIC report, which includes an updated map, is available at https://www.swinehealth.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Report-ASF-China-8.30.18.pdf