In 2003, the Veterinary Public Health Centre for Asia Pacific (VPHCAP) was established to be a regional information centre on food safety for food of animal origin in countries of the Asia-Pacific region. Since then, the VPHCAP has provided considerable amounts of information for the region’s public health researchers.
With the recent commencement of the ILRI-led ‘Reducing disease risks and improving food safety in smallholder pig value chains in Vietnam’ project, and building upon the South-South Symposium – Managing Risks in Emerging Pork Markets, ILRI veterinary epidemiologist Fred Unger recently compiled this research brief reviewing selected veterinary public health research on pigs and pig products in Southeast Asia, published between 2005 and 2012. In the brief, Fred mainly considers VPHCAP-published works.
He found that microbiological contamination/prevalence studies, focusing specifically on the slaughterhouse-setting, dominated VPH pig research, with a greater focus on the medium, or large-scale sector. The relative lack of small-scale sector research may well be due to the majority of research being focused on Thailand and Vietnam, with minimal research on neighbouring Cambodia and Lao PDR where the sector is overwhelmingly dominated by small-scale producers.
View Fred’s accompanying presentation from the South-South Symposium – Managing Risks in Emerging Pork Markets
ILRI Asia 