N Korea swine flu outbreak puts South on edge

SEOUL: South Korean troops stationed along the world’s last Cold War frontier have been put on high alert in the face of a new infiltration threat from the nuclear-armed North -- fever-stricken wild boar.

An outbreak of African swine fever that has cut swathes through China, Vietnam and Mongolia has spread to the isolated country, sparking worries that sick animals crossing the heavily militarised border could devastate the South’s US$5.9 billion pork industry.

"We need to focus on preventing wild boars in the North from entering our territory," the South’s Prime Minister Lee Nak-yeon said Saturday after visiting a pig farm near the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) that divides the two countries.

African swine fever is known to be harmless to humans but is fatal to pigs and wild boar and has devastated supply chains in China -- the world’s largest consumer of pork -- where authorities have ordered the culling of hundreds of thousands of pigs.