Source: Lisa M. Keefe, MEATINGPLACE, 9/14/18


African Swine Fever (ASF) has been confirmed in two wild boars in Belgium, in an area about eight miles from the border with France and 11 miles from the border with Luxembourg, according to the Swine Health Information Center (SHIC) at the University of Minnesota.

Reports are preliminary and the discovery has not been officially reported to the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) yet. It is a significant development, however, because the disease appears to have jumped a considerable distance from those countries that have been previous affected: the Czech Republic (about 300 miles away), Hungary (500 miles) and Romania (750 miles).

The Belgian authorities report they are working to prevent the possible spread of the disease among wild boar and onto pig farms.

They speculate that the disease could have been transported a considerable distance by travelers who left food behind that was eaten by the wild boars, according to a report in Pig World, a publication of the U.K. pork industry. 

The disease is not a threat to humans but can wipe out large populations of swine, which transmit the disease by contact with one another or with contaminated equipment, or by eating contaminated food. There is no vaccine or treatment. Officials in the EU’s hog industry are encouraging strict biosecurity standards to protect the livestock. In many parts of Europe, however, pigs roam freely on the farm.

Dave Warner, director of communications for the National Pork Producers Council in Washington, D.C., said in a statement sent to Meatingplace, "The spread of ASF through Europe and China is concerning, and we are watching this closely and in constant communication with USDA. We’ve also communicated with pork producers on efforts to keep this trade-limiting disease out of the United States.”

ASF has never been detected in the United States, according to USDA.

It is not the first time that ASF has appeared in Belgium, but the last outbreak was in 1985, according to Wageningen University in the Netherlands. The last outbreak in Western Europe was in the Netherlands in 1986.

Since June 2007, ASF has been a problem in Russia and 10 other regions and countries in Eastern Europe as far west as Poland. Genetic analysis showed that the outbreak started in Russia — perhaps from contaminated pork imported from Africa — and spread to the other countries. Its reappearance in Western Europe threatens the region’s vital pork industry.

In 2017, Belgium exported $1.4 billion of pork, making it the eighth-largest pork exporter in the EU by country, according to SHIC.

But it is cheek-to-jowl with much larger pork regions in Germany and France, as well as The Netherlands and Denmark. The EU as a whole is the second-largest pork producing region in the world, behind China, which has been dealing with its own damaging outbreak of ASF. The United States is third.

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