Spread of ASF to Albania Highlights Need to Control Wild Pigs
The Associate Director of the Swine Health Information Center suggests the spread of African Swine Fever into Albania highlights the risks posed by wild pigs
by Bruce Cochrane – Farmscape.ca
The Swine Health Information Center’s monthly global swine disease monitoring report, released as part of its March eNewsletter, indicates Albania has become the 28th European country to confirm the presence of ASF genotype 2 since its introduction in 2007.
SHIC Associate Director Lisa Becton says this highlights the dangers posed by wild pigs.
“It highlights the need to really monitor our wild boar populations because they do move and they are one of the main reasons why we continue to see populations of wild pigs go positive”“There were two wild boar that were found positive and they had tested those carcasses.
Those animals were identified near the border of Kosovo and Northern Macedonia and those two countries were already identified as positive and so it very well could be that positive animals came in and exposed naive boars in Albania and now, all of a sudden, positives are showing up within Albania.“It highlights the need to really monitor our wild boar populations because they do move and they are one of the main reasons why we continue to see populations of wild pigs in other countries go positive.
“There’s a lot of different countries in Europe that are assessing how they are managing their wild pig populations. These include Estonia, Poland, Norway, Latvia and Italy and there’s many things being considered.
“Some countries such as Norway are really evaluating their national plans and including different options like eradication of wild pigs in certain areas, very strictly managing wild boar meat sales and even considering fencing and barriers.
“Other countries such as Italy are doing the same thing and really trying to implement comprehensive plans that look at the different methods of how these animals are moving, propagating and becoming infected.“
Dr. Becton says this has significant implications for the U.S. in terms of seeing how Europe is able to manage and hopefully prevent the further spread of ASF.
The domestic and global swine disease monitoring reports can be accessed at swinehealth.org.
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