Officials and experts Wednesday moved to play down the threat from the pig-borne infection that has killed 27 people in Southwest China's Sichuan Province.

By noon Wednesday, the number of people infected with the bacteria, streptococcus suis, had reached 131, 14 more than the day before.

Although most cases have been reported in the cities of Ziyang and Neijiang, six towns in other regions of Sichuan reported six human cases Wednesday, according to a statement from the Ministry of Health.

The statement did not identify the regions but said the six cases were not new outbreaks. They were found only because the local governments had stepped up efforts to identify infected people after many cases were found in Ziyang and Neijiang.

Pork sales are expected to be hit as cases of the disease continue to rise, but the ministry was keen to point out that of the 14 newly reported cases, only two people became ill on Tuesday. The remaining 12 patients fell ill several days ago but were only diagnosed Wednesday.

Ultimately, the outbreak will pose no permanent threat to either the industry or humans, leading veterinary experts in Nanjing and officials in Beijing said.

"We have the technology and procedures to bring the disease under control," a Ministry of Agriculture official, who identified himself only as Wang, said Wednesday.

"For example, we have already developed pig vaccines, though we have not produced them for a long while."

Two factories, one in Guangzhou in South China's Guangdong Province and the other in Sichuan Province, are mass-producing the vaccines, said Yao Huochun, an associate professor of the College of Veterinary Medicine at Nanjing Agricultural University.

Lu Chengping, president of the graduate school of the college, said even healthy pigs commonly carry the bacteria with no threat to human health.

People are only likely to contract the disease from slaughtering or handling pigs that are sick or died from the infection, he said.

Lu and Yao participated in the investigation of a 1998 outbreak of the infection in Nantong, in East China's Jiangsu Province.

In that outbreak patients exhibited the same symptoms as those shown by victims in Sichuan high fever, bleeding under the skin and poison-related shock, they said.

According to the researchers, "a few" patients died, but they did not reveal exact figures.

Aside from through the slaughtering and processing of affected pigs, no other transmission channels have been found.

More than one month has passed since the first human infection was found, and so far no person-to-person infection has been found, said Mao Qun'an, a Ministry of Health spokesman.

Although some have blamed the current epidemic on the unsanitary conditions of Sichuan's small-scale pig farms combined with hot temperatures, Yao said experts had yet to determine what specifically triggered the outbreak.

The bacteria is endemic in swine, but experts need to know under what conditions the disease will break out, given that not all pigs on a single farm will come down with the disease, Yao said.

"I hope more money and manpower will be pooled to study the infection and find out what other animals may carry and transmit the bacteria," he said.

The Ministry of Health issued a national guideline Wednesday explaining the symptoms of the disease, and how to treat patients and prevent and control the epidemic.

Source: China Daily