Vietnam rejected nearly 10% of its pig population in order to contain the outbreak of African swine fever that began to hit large industrial farms, a government statement said on Tuesday June 25th.

The government statement said that earlier outbreaks occurred mainly in small households, but now they began to occur in large industrial enterprises, including the Phu Song Farm in Dong Nai Province, one of the oldest cities in Ho Chi Minh City one of a kind in the country.

“This is a very alarming sign, because there are tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of pigs on these industrial farms, and therefore the damage will be significant,” the government said in a statement posted on its official website.

According to a statement, African swine fever, which is fatal to pigs but harmless to humans, was first discovered in Vietnam in February and during that time spread to farms in 60 of the country's 63 provinces.

Nationwide, in Vietnam, more than 2.8 million pigs are already affected today, a government statement said, compared with 2.5 million pigs affected a week ago.