China has announced a ban on the import of pork and pig products from Germany after the European country confirmed its first case of African swine fever in a wild boar in Brandenburg last week.

The ban was announced by China’s customs agency and its agriculture ministry on Saturday.

The move to block imports from China’s third largest supplier of pork comes even as the Asian nation battles an unprecedented shortage of the meat after its own epidemic of the deadly hog disease.

The German farmers, however, had urged China to avoid a nationwide ban on imports of pork.

South Korea, the second largest non-EU buyer of German pigmeat behind China, immediately banned German pork imports after ASF was discovered in a dead wild boar on Thursday.

Germany, Europe’s biggest pork producer, sold $1.2 billion worth of German pigmeat to China last year.

The German government is pressing for regional import bans from individual areas hit by ASF and not blanket bans on German pork.

A number of cases have been confirmed in recent months in wild boars in western Poland, with one only about 10 km from the German border.

Cases have also been confirmed recently in about 10 other European countries, where wild boars are suspected of spreading the disease.

ASF is not dangerous to humans but fatal to pigs. It has hit China, the world’s top pork producer, hard.

(with inputs from agencies)