Well-cooked pork poses no hazard: officials

Officials at the Council of Agriculture (COA) and the Department of Health (DOH) said people in Taiwan should not worry about possible infection through pork because it is not a common habit for consumers to eat the meat raw here.

The H1N1 virus can be totally eliminated in high heat during the cooking process, they explained.

Among the nine other nations which have reported man-to-pig H1N1 infections, including Japan, the U.S. and Britain, there has been no single case of the reverse transmission from pigs back to humans, they said.

Even when humans are infected, they can receive the same standard medical treatment for H1N1 infections as other patients infected by humans, the officials said.

But the officials said pig raisers should maintain strict hygiene regimen in their daily management operations to ally the possible psychological impact to the consumers and the sales of pork on the market.

An official of the nation's pig raisers association said he was relieved after learning that the first man-to-pig flu infection in Taiwan has come under control.

He urged all members of his group to cooperate with government health officials in accordance with the anti-flu guidelines announced early this year.

Stemming any outbreak of H1N1 infections among the livestock is the only way to maintain the confidence of pork consumers in Taiwan and importers of pork produced here, he said.

Among other measures, the official said he had carried out two disinfection operations for his farm which at present accommodates more than 4,000 pigs.

Consumers should not be deterred by the single case in Taitung as many smaller pig farms in the association have been regularly carrying out their disinfection operations on a daily basis, he said.

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