Maryland agriculture officials have issued a health alert to nearly a dozen states–from Indiana to Georgia–warning about pigs that are missing from a farm in western Carroll County that was under quarantine.
“Testing of some of the swine on the farm [and escaped pigs captured just outside the farm] were positive for several diseases of human health importance,” including trichinosis and toxoplasmosis, officials wrote in a letter dated Sept. 29.
The notice was addressed to state veterinarians in Delaware, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.
“All the pigs on the farm [approximately 102] are now missing,” officials wrote. “We would appreciate it if you could make inquiries to livestock market operators in your state to determine if they may have received a consignment of pigs from Maryland sometime after September 18.”
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A spokesman with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service said last week that consumers shouldn’t be worried about pork products on the market but should exercise basic sanitary practices, such as thoroughly cooking raw meat.
“Trichinosis is a very, very rare thing in America now,” said Steven Cohen, a spokesman with the federal agency. “I don’t want to alarm people, but it is a good thing to remember [to thoroughly cook meat] to eliminate food-borne pathogens.”
No human trichinosis cases have been reported in Maryland for more than five years, said state agriculture officials. About a dozen cases are reported each year nationally, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Five of the pigs trapped this summer outside the farm in western Carroll County tested positive for trichinosis, a potentially fatal disease caused by a parasitic worm. Nine of the pigs had toxoplasmosis, a more common parasite sometimes contracted from ingested cat feces, according to the CDC.
Maryland agriculture officials said in last week’s letter that the quarantine was imposed because the farm’s owner, Carroll Schisler Sr., was feeding raw garbage and meat scraps to the swine.
The farm has been under quarantine since spring, when a pig taken from the property by state inspectors was found to carry trichinosis.
Schisler, who owns the 112-acre farm, and his son, Carroll Jr., 34, who manages it, appeared last week in U.S. District Court in Baltimore to respond to allegations that they might be connected to the pigs’ disappearance.
The Schislers testified that the pigs had been gathered in a hog lot Sept. 17 and 18 and they last saw the animals Sept. 24.