African swine fever is a highly contagious and deadly disease of domestic pigs. No vaccine or treatment for the disease yet exists. This disease, which is listed by the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) as a significant transboundary disease, poses a huge risk to the global pig industry, valued at some USD150 billion.

Fortunately, China had prepared itself to address this disease threat. Following detection of African swine fever in the Caucasus region in 2007, the China Animal Disease Control Center (CADC) and the China Animal Health and Epidemiology Center (CAHEC) of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs began to prepare the country for actions to take in the event the disease entered China. The disease progressively spread west and east from the Caucasus. Following its detection in 2017 in Irkutsk, a city in eastern Siberia, Russia, only some 1000 km from China, Beijing issued a countrywide warning to enable government agencies and personnel at all levels to respond to a possible outbreak in China.