Highly contagious and potentially devastating to the swine industry, African swine fever (ASF) has spread in recent weeks to the Czech Republic and now Romania, prompting warnings to European pig producers to raise biosecurity and to be alert to early signs of the disease.
Earlier this week, Romania’s veterinary authority reported to the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) of the first occurrence of the disease in the country. This initial outbreak was confirmed last week in a small backyard herd in the city of Satu Mare. The county of the same name borders Ukraine and Hungary. While the source of infection was under investigation, a second outbreak at a contact premises in the city was reported. So far, just seven pigs have been lost to the disease.
On June 21, the State Veterinary Administration of the Czech Republic reported its first ASF outbreak. Up to now, 71 wild boar found dead in forests in a handful of districts in the region of Zlin have tested positive for the virus. Zlin is in the east of the country, and borders Slovakia. The disease has not spread to the commercial pig sector, which is centered in the west of the Czech Republic.
ASF was first reported in Eastern Europe in 2014, and the disease has since spread from Russia, through Ukraine to Moldova, and to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. The virus has been circulating in the wild boar population in the forests that extend across much of this region.
In some cases, poor farm biosecurity has been an issue in the transmission of the virus. One of the 35 ASF outbreaks in Poland so far this year has been on a commercial farm, where the source of infection is thought to have been a vehicle delivering wood to the sawmill next door, according to an update from the UK Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA).
So far in 2017, ASF outbreaks in commercial pigs have been confirmed in eastern Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine and Moldova, according to APHA. The disease also appears to have jumped to the Omsk region of Russia, near to the border with Kazakhstan.
European countries on ASF alert
Germany’s Federal Ministry for Food and Agriculture, BMEL, has recently stated that the transmission of the ASF virus would have severe consequences not only for the animals affected but also for the economy. This would be particularly hard to tackle if it entered the wild boar population, and BMEL is urging the proper disposal of any leftover food so that it cannot be reached by pigs, wild or domesticated.
BMEL is also asking farmers, vets and hunters to be on alert for the early signs of ASF.
Because of a shortage of skilled workers, pig producers in some European Union countries have come to rely on staff from eastern European countries to meet their labor requirements.
With many of these farm workers and other people now taking summer holidays, the levy board in the UK, Agricultural and Horticultural Development Board, AHDB Pork has issued a reminder about the risks of bringing pork products into the UK from abroad. These include warnings not to bring pork products on to farms or to feed scraps to dogs and cats that could carry them into pig areas, and to make sure waste bins have lids to prevent access by scavengers.