At least one million cockroaches have reportedly escaped from a farm in China where they were being bred for use in traditional medicine.

The Modern Express newspaper said the cockroaches fled the facility in Dafeng, in the eastern province of Jiangsu, for surrounding cornfields after an “unknown perpetrator” destroyed the plastic greenhouse where they were raised.

Disease control authorities have sent five investigators to the area to come up with a plan to stamp out the insects.

Believers in traditional Chinese medicine, which uses both plants and animals, say extracts from the cockroach can treat diseases including cancer, reduce inflammation and improve immunity.

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