African swine fever (ASF) is a notifiable infectious disease, with high economic losses, that affects pigs and wild boars. It is caused by a virus for which we still have neither a treatment nor a vaccine with proven efficacy, and whose origin was described in Africa in 1921.
by Carlos Martínez
Wild pigs in Africa may show no symptoms and act as a reservoir for the disease. However, movements of live animals and their products around the world have made ASF a major challenge that decimates pig and wild boar populations outside Africa.
In Europe, the situation is far from being controlled. Since the appearance of outbreaks in wild boars and domestic pigs in Russia between 2007 and 2012, the countries bordering this vast country have been increasing their reports of positive cases: Ukraine (2012) Belarus (2013) Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia (2014).
During the following years the disease has been spreading through the European countries from east to west: Poland (2016), Czech Republic, Romania (2017), Hungary, Belgium, Bulgaria (2018), Slovakia, Serbia (2019), Greece (2020) and Germany, where in September 2020, near the Polish border, the first positive was found in a wild boar.
The fundamental role of the European wild boar in the epidemiology of ASF has been known for years. It manages to travel great distances even between countries, being able to infect both domestic and wild pigs, as well as other wild boars on its way.
Therefore, several of the actions aimed at controlling ASF in central Europe include wild boars:
These controls by our center European fellow can help us stop the unstoppable progress of the ASF virus, but we continue to have to maintain our controls and not lower vigilance within our borders.
Biosecurity is the most important tool against this disease. Biosecurity is composed of a series of measures that we take to prevent the entry of pathogens into a farm, area, or country and/or prevent their exit from it.
Some of the most important points within this strategy are cleaning and disinfection. They are of such importance that they are detailed in article 12 and Annex II of Royal Decree 546/2003, of May 9, which establishes specific provisions to combat ASF in our country.
And it is that among the many control points against ASF, one that continues to be crucial is the cleaning and disinfection of, among others, the trucks that transport animals into and out of our territory:
Movements that often involve entering and leaving different farms and that may not have enough time for exhaustive cleaning and disinfection.
This situation is crucial, but even more when we talk about ASF where only some disinfectants have managed to show efficacy in eliminating the presence of the virus from surfaces. To find out about these disinfectants, the Ministry of Agriculture has prepared a list of officially registered disinfectant products that have demonstrated efficacy against the African swine fever virus.
Official registration in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food (MAPA) against the ASF virus.
The trucks, like any other vehicle that enters the farm, must come with the appropriate documentation and go through the cleaning and disinfection measures that are part of our Biosafety protocol on the farm (wheel bath, disinfection arches) without forgetting the people who come. inside (footbaths for footwear, change of clothes to avoid the entry of virus attached to it, avoid the consumption of pork or its derivatives, avoid entering the facilities …) the health of the transported animals is as important, as the cleaning and disinfection of the vehicle and the training of the people who drive them.
It is important to note that the ASF virus is highly contagious, it can remain infectious in the environment in different places and surfaces, and that it continues to spread throughout Asia and Europe.
The use of products approved by our competent authorities against ASF will allow us to provide our biosecurity program with an additional guarantee against a disease that we hope we will never have again on our farms.
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