TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Tests have confirmed that pig deaths at a farm in Taichung were caused by African swine fever, leading the country to suspend exports of all pork products.

Taiwan will inform the World Organization for Animal Health of the latest developments and notify countries importing pork from Taiwan, the Ministry of Agriculture said. Suspicions of an African swine fever outbreak arose on Tuesday, with the government imposing bans on the transportation, slaughter, and feeding of pigs with kitchen waste the following day.

At a news conference Saturday, officials in charge of the campaign to contain the outbreak confirmed that complete tests did show African swine fever was responsible for the deaths of hogs at a Wuqi District farm, per CNA.

However, there were no signs the outbreak had expanded to other farms, Minister without Portfolio Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) said. Visits to all 5,439 hog farms in the country were set to be completed tomorrow, he added.

Earlier, the authorities said the deaths of four pigs at a Changhua farm where a truck had visited that had been to the Wuqi farm were not related to African swine fever. Forty farms in Taichung, Changhua, and Miaoli where the truck had visited tested negative for the fever. 

Tests are still necessary at five slaughterhouses. As the incubation period for the fever lasts 15 days, negative test results now do not exclude the possibility of outbreaks being found later on, officials said.

If there is no new outbreak within three months, Taiwan can apply to the World Organization for Animal Health to regain its status as a country without African swine fever, the Liberty Times reported. Until this week, Taiwan was one of the few countries in Asia without any of the major pig diseases, also including classical swine fever and foot and mouth disease.