Domestic pigs are safe from the swine influenza, the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) has said, while stressing that public attention should turn to ways in which humans – not pigs – can contract the disease.

“The media are all so concerned about pigs only because this thing’s called ‘swine flu’. But as a matter of fact, our pigs are doing fine,” a press officer, who declined to be named, told China Daily yesterday.

“Our focus right now ought to be on human beings,” the officer said, adding that an emphasis on pigs, especially pigs in China, would be “misguided”.

The MOA has declined to comment on whether China’s existing swine flu vaccine reserves – if there were any – would suffice a possible outbreak.

Swine flu viruses are said to cause high levels of illness – but low death rates – among pigs. Before the recent massive outbreak in North America, human infections had been only “occasionally reported”, according to a document released by the World Health Organization (WHO).

The domestic demand for pork has not so far seen a decline as a result of the flu outbreak in the other half of the world, which the WHO called “a public health emergency of international concern” on Saturday.

But hog and pork prices have already dropped steadily for months, an scene that replicated the last market crash in the early stages of a blue-ear disease outbreak among domestic pigs in 2006.

“The market wiped out most of the smaller breeders. Then the prices crashed, only to skyrocket again when there were only few big players left,” Zhang Xingrong, a former pig breeder in Hunan province, told China Daily.

“Only a few were lucky enough to have survived the crash then,” he recalled.

But so long as domestic pigs are safe from the swine flu, pig breeders believe they will stay worry-free this time.

At Xinfadi, Beijing’s largest wholesale food market, hog and pork prices stood at around 11.5 yuan (US$ 1.68) to 13.5 yuan (US$ 1.98) per kg yesterday.

Wholesale hog prices in the nation’s capital have dropped by more than 40 percent from the same period last year, when they peaked at about 17 yuan (US$ 2.49) per kg.

Wang Dequan, chief of Xinfadi’s hog and pork market, said he is concerned about the swine flu outbreak.

“It hasn’t affected our prices because there has been no report of the disease in China. But if there were to be any, the influence would be huge,” he told China Daily.

“It’s infection that we’re afraid of, not the disease itself,” Wang said.

Demand for pork has been reduced by the global financial crisis, which shut down thousands of export-oriented factories along China’s coasts, a major consuming base of pork, experts have said.

While the fluctuation is clearly reminiscent of the last pork price hike, when similar numbers pushed the consumer price index to 6.5 at one time – the highest in more than a decade, Xinhua’s agricultural product monitoring system has predicted that the pork price drops “will slow down” from this month on.

The WHO has said properly handled, prepared pork poses no danger.