Around 40 tons of meat which is not quarantined is consumed in HCM City a day,
said the HCM City Veterinary Bureau.

According to the bureau, the city consumes more than 400
tons of meats of all kinds a day, and around 10 percent of that volume is not
quarantined, equivalent to 40 tons.

The bureau’s vice chief, Nguyen An Hoa, said that the unsafe
meat volume is transported by illegal slaughtering houses in neighboring
provinces to HCM City. The unsafe meat is mainly sold at
small and mobile markets that serve workers in industrial zones and poor
people.

Dang Thi Tuyet, head of the Thu Duc Quarantine Station, said
that quarantined pork is priced from VND90,000 to VND120,000 per kilo ($4.5-6).
However, at small and mobile markets, pork is sold for VND60,000-70,000
($3-3.5) per kilo, Tuyet said.

“At that price, the meat is surely not quarantined. It may
include meat of ill pigs,” Tuyet added.

The Thu Duc Quarantine Station detects unsafe meat everyday.
On May 10, the station discovered a coach from the central province of Quang Nam
that carried over one ton of pig skin and fat without a quarantine certificate.
The driver said that the pig skin and fat volume was sold to several
restaurants in Thu Duc and Binh Thanh districts, HCM City.

On April 30 and May 1, the station detected 13 cases of
transporting tons of un-quarantined meat on Ha Noi highway. The meat was all
transported from illegal slaughtering houses in southern provinces of Binh
Duong and Dong Nai to HCM
City.

PV