(Bloomberg) -- Chinese pig-related stocks slumped after the world's biggest pork producer and consumer reported its first ever case of African swine fever.
Muyuan Foodstuff Co. dropped 8.7 percent, Guangdong Wens Foodstuffs Group Co. fell 6.3 percent and Tangrenshen Group Co. declined 4 percent. In Hong Kong, WH Group Ltd., the world's biggest pork company, retreated 2.1 percent.
China last week reported its first ever outbreak of African swine fever at a farm in Shenyang, spurring a cull, a ban on transportation and a quarantine for neighboring areas. The hemorrhagic disease is highly contagious and mortality rates can be as high as 100 percent, according to the World Organisation for Animal Health. It's not a threat to humans. China had more than 433 million pigs at the start of the year, more than half of the world's total.
African swine fever spreads fast and isn't limited by age or varieties of pigs, Zhongtai Securities Co. analysts led by Chen Qi wrote in a note on Sunday. There's no treatment or vaccine, they wrote.
Pig prices in Shandong climbed 3.7 percent on Friday and have rallied 43 percent since reaching the lowest in more than eight years in March.
--With assistance from Ludi Wang.
To contact the reporter on this story: Emma Dai in Hong Kong at edai8@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Phoebe Sedgman at psedgman2@bloomberg.net, Andrew Hobbs
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