In China, the ASF virus is moving from farms to wild boars
China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development announced that 7 wild boars infected with ASF have been found dead in a forest in Hubei province, in central China. China’s domestic hog herd has already shrunk by more than 40% because of an epidemic of the disease, though few cases have been found in wild boar in the country, informs Reuters.
This is a new development of the ASF crisis in the Asian country as the spreading of the disease was reported mainly in the farms and not blamed on the wild animal movement.
The rest of the cases reported in wild boars were seen usually in the areas close to the Russian border. In Asia, according to FAO experts, the ASF situation was regarded as "human created" due to the fact that only South Korea has been confronted so far with wild boars carrying the disease. The outbreak in wild animals may raise new problems for the Chinese authorities and could have a larger and longer impact for the pork industry in the country.
Until now, the World Organization for Animal Health was notified by 27 countries of new or ongoing outbreaks: 14 in Europe, 10 in Asia and three in Africa. With no vaccine or treatment available, culling pigs is the most effective way to contain the outbreaks, more than 30 million pigs have been culled during 2018 and 2019. The African swine fever pandemics have caused estimated economic losses of $2 billion for swine production worldwide. The African swine fever virus is stable in the environment and transmits rapidly and efficiently among pigs, scientists say.?African swine fever is believed to only infect pigs. No humans or other species are known to have been infected.
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