Officials at the Ministry of Agriculture announced on Jan. 28^th that Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea (PED) was found in baby pigs in the country. The discovery was the fist time in seven years the disease has been found in Japan.

By Jan. 27. a total of 5,213 baby pigs have died in Kagoshima, Ibaraki and two other prefectures,. If the infection spreads, the volume of pork meat coming to the market would decrease resulting in price rise. Officials add that humans have no risk of contacting the disease.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture, a case of infection was also found on Okinawa on three farms where a total of 233 pigs were found infected, of which 75 died. 406 pigs were found infected and 234 died on two Ibaraki Prefecture farms, and in Miyagi Prefecture, on 18 farms, 3,132 pigs were found infected and 2,328 died. In Kagoshima Prefecture on 93 farms 28,119 pigs were infected and 2,576 died.

Ministry of Agriculture officials stated that “The largest number of infected pigs are in Kagoshima Prefecture from where the infection spread to the surrounding prefectures.

The same disease has killed over one million pigs in the U.S. since the epidemic started in Iowa last spring, and officials there expect the total to rise to three or four times of that before the epidemic is over.

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