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Dec. 20, 2017
When Lithuania began fortifying its border with Belarus in July 2013, the fear wasn't soldiers or tanks, but an invasion of a different kind: African swine fever (ASF), a notorious viral disease that kills both farm pigs and wild boar. Lithuanian border guards sprayed trucks with disinfectant, wildlife biologists experimented with animal repellents and fencing, and officials designated a 20-kilometer-wide surveillance zone.
It was to no avail. In January 2014, two dead boar found on the Lithuanian side of the border tested positive for ASF, marking the first arrival of the disease in the European Union in decades. It has continued moving westward since then, putting the European Union on high alert. "The concern is increasing and increasing," says Dolores Gavier-Widen, a wildlife pathologist at Sweden's National Veterinary Institute in Uppsala and chair of an EU research network studying the disease.
ASF has engulfed three Baltic countries and far-eastern Poland, and this summer, it suddenly appeared in wild boar in the Czech Republic. In November, it also surfaced around Warsaw, increasing the alarm in nearby pig-producing countries such as Germany and Denmark. ASF "is the disease with the highest concern right now, no doubt about that," says Jens Munk Ebbesen, chief veterinarian of the Danish Agriculture and Food Council in Copenhagen. Pork exports were worth $4.8 billion last year, 19% of Denmark's food and agricultural exports.
The threat has researchers scrambling to pin down how ASF spreads—a puzzle complicated by the role of wild boar—and redoubling efforts to develop a vaccine. The economic stakes are high; even a single ASF case in a wild boar can lead other countries to ban imports of pork. "Whenever we have the first case, the damage is already done," says Willie Loeffen of Wageningen Bioveterinary Research in the Netherlands.
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In the meantime, surveillance is crucial, because quick detection boosts the odds of stamping out viral incursions. In June, ASF was detected in two wild boar in the Czech Republic, about 400 kilometers from the nearest infected population at the time. Hunting groups and biologists then set up electric fences and boar repellents to contain the animals within a 50-square-kilometer area. In September, officials decided to let trained hunters kill boar in that zone, in a bid to eliminate the disease. But it's only a matter of time before infected animals escape, says Radim Plhal, a wildlife biologist at Mendel University in Brno, Czech Republic.
The jump to the Warsaw area, where two dead wild boar were reported on 17 November, was another "huge surprise," says Grzegorz Woźniakowski of the National Veterinary Research Institute in Puławy, Poland. By this week, at least 40 cases had been confirmed around the city, raising concern for the large pig producers in western Poland.
Veterinary authorities and trade groups in Denmark and Germany are now reminding farmers and hunters to keep biosecurity as tight as possible. Animal transport trucks from affected countries are disinfected before they enter Denmark. Germany and several other countries at risk are testing every wild boar that is found dead, and they offer bounties to encourage boar hunting, says veterinarian Klaus Depner of the Friedrich Loeffler Institute, Germany's national institute for animal health, in Greifswald. "It is hard to stop the introduction of the virus," he says. "We hope that we will have enough time to prepare properly."
When Lithuania began fortifying its border with Belarus in July 2013, the fear wasn't soldiers or tanks, but an invasion of a different kind: African swine fever (ASF), a notorious viral disease that kills both farm pigs and wild boar. Lithuanian border guards sprayed trucks with disinfectant, wildlife biologists experimented with animal repellents and fencing, and officials designated a 20-kilometer-wide surveillance zone.
It was to no avail. In January 2014, two dead boar found on the Lithuanian side of the border tested positive for ASF, marking the first arrival of the disease in the European Union in decades. It has continued moving westward since then, putting the European Union on high alert. "The concern is increasing and increasing," says Dolores Gavier-Widen, a wildlife pathologist at Sweden's National Veterinary Institute in Uppsala and chair of an EU research network studying the disease.
ASF has engulfed three Baltic countries and far-eastern Poland, and this summer, it suddenly appeared in wild boar in the Czech Republic. In November, it also surfaced around Warsaw, increasing the alarm in nearby pig-producing countries such as Germany and Denmark. ASF "is the disease with the highest concern right now, no doubt about that," says Jens Munk Ebbesen, chief veterinarian of the Danish Agriculture and Food Council in Copenhagen. Pork exports were worth $4.8 billion last year, 19% of Denmark's food and agricultural exports.
The threat has researchers scrambling to pin down how ASF spreads—a puzzle complicated by the role of wild boar—and redoubling efforts to develop a vaccine. The economic stakes are high; even a single ASF case in a wild boar can lead other countries to ban imports of pork. "Whenever we have the first case, the damage is already done," says Willie Loeffen of Wageningen Bioveterinary Research in the Netherlands.
(..............................................)
In the meantime, surveillance is crucial, because quick detection boosts the odds of stamping out viral incursions. In June, ASF was detected in two wild boar in the Czech Republic, about 400 kilometers from the nearest infected population at the time. Hunting groups and biologists then set up electric fences and boar repellents to contain the animals within a 50-square-kilometer area. In September, officials decided to let trained hunters kill boar in that zone, in a bid to eliminate the disease. But it's only a matter of time before infected animals escape, says Radim Plhal, a wildlife biologist at Mendel University in Brno, Czech Republic.
The jump to the Warsaw area, where two dead wild boar were reported on 17 November, was another "huge surprise," says Grzegorz Woźniakowski of the National Veterinary Research Institute in Puławy, Poland. By this week, at least 40 cases had been confirmed around the city, raising concern for the large pig producers in western Poland.
Veterinary authorities and trade groups in Denmark and Germany are now reminding farmers and hunters to keep biosecurity as tight as possible. Animal transport trucks from affected countries are disinfected before they enter Denmark. Germany and several other countries at risk are testing every wild boar that is found dead, and they offer bounties to encourage boar hunting, says veterinarian Klaus Depner of the Friedrich Loeffler Institute, Germany's national institute for animal health, in Greifswald. "It is hard to stop the introduction of the virus," he says. "We hope that we will have enough time to prepare properly."
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