RUSSIA BANS ARMENIAN MEAT AMID DISEASE OUTBREAK
By Irina Hovannisian

Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
Aug 29 2007

Russia banned imports of meat from Armenia on Wednesday, citing an
outbreak of African Swine Fever (ASF) registered in the country’s
northern regions late last week.

Russian authorities also restricted imports of some Armenian
agricultural products for the same reason.

According to the Itar-Tass news agency, the ban followed the release
of the results of laboratory tests conducted in Armenia by Russian
food safety experts. They concluded that ASF, which rarely occurs
outside Africa, was the cause of mass deaths of pigs reported from
several villages in the Lori and Tavush provinces bordering Georgia.

The Armenian Agriculture Ministry arrived at the same conclusion at
the weekend, quarantining the affected communities. "Transport of
pork, live pigs and animal fodder from those communities is banned,"
Grigor Baghian, head of the ministry’s Food Safety and Veterinary
Inspectorate, told RFE/RL.

Baghian said police and veterinary services have set up roadblocks
outside those villages to enforce the quarantine. The authorities have
also ordered a mandatory cull of all local pigs, he said, adding that
more than a thousand of them have already been killed.

Baghian said his agency believes that the disease spilled into Armenia
from Georgia where an ASF outbreak occurred on a larger scale earlier
this summer. Tens of thousands of pigs have died or been culled there
as a result.

Although the disease poses little danger to humans, it seems to have
already reduced pork consumption in Armenia. Pork was not available
for sale in one of central Yerevan’s main markets on Wednesday.

"People don’t buy pork, and so we stopped selling it," one meat trader
told RFE/RL.

Traders in another market did sell pork which they said is supplied
from the country’s southern regions and closely inspected by food
safety experts. But they said pork sales have dropped considerably
in the past few days.