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The Official Veterinary Services of Romania informed yesterday, March 14th, 2018, of a new African swine fever (ASF) outbreak in domestic pigs on a non-commercial farm with a census of 5 fattening pigs. All of them died because of the disease.
The affected farm is located in Bercu Nou, a town in the region of Satu Mare, near the border with Ukraine (a country in which the disease is widely spread), and close to the frontier with Hungary. In this same region, in the summer of 2017, two ASF outbreaks were confirmed on two backyard farms, and another outbreak was confirmed in January 2018 on a pig farm with 38 animals.
In the absence of more information from the Romanian authorities regarding the origin of the infection, the increasingly frequent trickle of cases in domestic pigs raises suspicions that the viral load in the environment may be increasing in the region, either due to the presence of infected wild boars that could be going unnoticed to the surveillance systems or to the possible relationship with affected adjacent countries (Ukraine). The farm is located only 4 km away from the last outbreak declared by Romania in January 2018, four km away from the border with Ukraine, a country where the circulation of the virus is still high in pigs and in wild boars, and 4 km away from the border with Hungary, that up to now has not notified the presence of the disease in its territory.
Next, we include a map with the location of the outbreaks declared by Romania.
ASF outbreaks in Romania 2017-2018 (source: RASVE-ADNS)
Thursday, March 15th, 2018/ RASVE-MAPAMA/ Spain.
http://www.mapama.gob.es
