Pork Back On Menu After Lunar New Year

Fresh supplies of pork will resume on Friday after a three-day operation to cleanse abattoirs in Sheung Shui and Tsuen Wan.

The abattoirs were cleaned as a precautionary measure because of an outbreak of African swine fever across the border.

More than 3,000 live pigs will be slaughtered and distributed to various markets on Friday, up 25 percent on the same period last year.

Pork traders expect pork prices to remain fairly stable.

Hong Kong imports about 4,000 live pigs a day from 50 farms on the mainland, more than half of them in Guangdong. Local farms supply only about 300 pigs a day.

The mainland has been hard hit by the disease, which has infected almost 100 farms across China since August 2018, spreading faster than in any other country to date, reaching 24 provinces and regions.

The authorities have culled more than 900,000 pigs as a result of the outbreak.

African swine fever does not harm humans but is deadly to pigs and there is no vaccine or cure.