African swine fever: sharing best practices is critical to stop spread

Sharing best practices in fighting African swine fever is critical to halt the spread of the disease, say EFSA experts. These include early detection methods and rigorous emergency measures.

EFSA experts assisted Baltic countries and Poland in the analysis of epidemiological data collected up until September 2017. The disease is continuing to spread among wild boar. In 2017 two additional EU Member States – the Czech Republic and Romania – reported cases bringing the number of affected Member States to six.

Experts concluded that despite concerted efforts to stop the spread of African swine fever among wild boar, humans have played a critical role in spreading the disease (for example through the disposal of contaminated waste in wild boar habitat).

Sofie Dhollander, veterinarian at EFSA, presents the findings of the report on behalf of the working group on African swine fever at a high level conference organized by the Ministry of Agriculture of the Czech Republic in Prague on 9 November 2017.