PHNOM PENH, Aug. 17 (Reuters) - Cambodia has banned the import of pigs and pork from neighbouring Vietnam, Laos and Thailand in fear of a porcine disease spreading from China, Agriculture Minister Chan Sarun said on Friday. The Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome Virus, also known as blue ear disease, had been found near Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam's biggest city, he said. "We must take action now to ban the imports before the virus reaches us," he told Reuters. Figures for pork and pig imports were not immediately available, but officials say there is smuggling of pigs into Cambodia, where 35 percent of the 14 million people live below the poverty line of less than a dollar per day. About one million pigs have died in China from a variation of the virus in an outbreak that began in May last year.
