Germany prepares for 5 years of fight against ASF
Germany may have to fight 5 more years to eradicate African Swine Fever from its wild boar population, according to a group of experts. It has been a year now since the disease was found within wild boars near the Polish border and a group of veterinarians present at a conference with this topic shared their opinions, which do not sound so comfortable for the German swine industry.
Carola Sauter-Louis, head of the German Federal Institute for Research in Animal Health, FLI, explained that the situation due to the presence of ASF in Germany is different from the presence in Belgium or the Czech Republic, countries that have managed to eradicate the disease in wild boar. This is because they only had to fight the disease at one point, while in Germany it is widely spread along the entire Polish border.
Sauter-Louis assured that the five-year forecast is similar to the situation in Estonia, where there are many outbreaks and after that period the number of cases has disappeared. If a similar pattern were observed in western Poland, it would mean that in approximately 5 years the worst would be over.
But Germany is working to improve the situation and a second fence is being built to complement the one built so far. It would be completed in November of this year and the corridor that will form between the two fences will protect the rest of the country against ASF. "Once the second fence is completed, the situation in the rest of the country should be very similar to that experienced in Belgium and the Czech Republic", concluded Sauter-Louis.
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