BEIJING, May 17 (Reuters) - China's agriculture ministry urged local authorities on Thursday to step up the fight against blue ear pig disease, which industry officials estimate has wiped out up to a million pigs in the past year.

"We face a severe situation in prevention as it is the peak outbreak season of the highly contagious blue ear disease," agriculture minister Sun Zhengcai said in a speech.

"If the disease was not properly controlled, the pig breeding industry, income of farmers and stability of the pork market would be badly hurt," Sun told a national conference.

The disease, caused by a variation of the Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS) virus, does not affect people. It causes stillbirths in pigs, fever, loss of appetite, diarrhoea ands redness of the skin.

The ministry urged local authorities to take measures to ban the slaughtering, sales and transport of sick pigs. Sales of such meat for food was prohibited, Sun said in a speech posted on the ministry Web site (www.agri.gov.cn).

But industry officials said farmers, who do not receive any compensation for destroying sick pigs, could easily sell the meat at markets because of lack of supervision.

The minister did not say how many pigs had died from the disease. Last week, the ministry asked local governments to report new infections after an outbreak in April in Guangdong province caught the attention of Hong Kong and international media.

The ministry said authorities would start to immunise pigs in key areas later this month.

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