Swine fever hits Romanian farm

TIMISOARA, Romania --Some 16,000 pigs will be slaughtered at a farm belonging to Smithfield Foods Inc., the world's top pork producer, after a second outbreak of swine fever at one of the company's farms in less than a week, an official said Tuesday.

The discovery came Monday at a farm in the southwestern village of Igris, 38 miles west of Timisoara near the Hungarian border, according to Radu Roatis, who heads Romania's Veterinary Heath Authority.

More outbreaks were expected, Roatis told reporters. "There are other farms that do not have all the health authorizations and do not respect" animal and environment safety rules, he said.

Roatis said the farm in Igris did not have an animal health certificate or a certificate attesting to environmental standards, as required by law.

Last week, authorities discovered an outbreak at another pig farm belonging to Smithfield in the village of Cenei, and said that 20,000 pigs were being slaughtered.

The Smithfield, Va.-based company has 25 pig farms in western Romania. There was no immediate reaction from Smithfield.

Swine fever is a viral disease that is fatal to pigs but has no known effect on people.

Authorities shut down other farms in the region Saturday until their pigs could be inspected.

The last outbreak of swine fever in the area was in 2003, authorities said.

Smithfield is the largest pork producer in western Romania with an investment of $1.1 billion. The company bought Communist-era state-owned pig farms.