‘AFRICAN SWINE FEVER, NAVIGATING UNCERTAINTY’ WEBINAR
Which is the current situation regarding ASF?
One of the main worries of the sector is African swine fever. Because of this, in this webinar we update the situation of this disease in Europe and the rest of the world.
To that end we count on the greatest international expert on ASF:
✅ Dr. José Manuel Sánchez-Vizcaíno (Professor of Animal Health at the UCM and person in charge of the Vacdiva project)
And as hosts of the webinar:
✅ Mr. Miguel Ángel Higuera (Director of Anprogapor)
✅ Mr. Miguel Chico (CEO of The Farm Revolution)
Did you miss it? You can watch it again here and know the opinion of the experts.
Are things being done the right way in Europe?
We are living the evolution of the ASF from Poland to Germany. The situation regarding wild animals is still complicated due to the great density of wild boars and their movements.
Belgium and the Czech Republic only suffered the disease in wild boars and managed to eradicate it. The work they have done to control the disease has been excellent.
Sardinia could follow the steps of the two previous countries. It is making great efforts, and no positive cases have been found among the wild fauna for more than a year.
The risk of entry in all Europe is being markedly reduced through the wild fauna route, but the risk of entry through transport (contamination of tyres) is still important. There is also the risk of entry through contaminated feed from affected countries: because of workers we have in common with these countries, or through Asian exported food that may suffer some kind of rejection, as in the case of a picnic in which remains of infected food may be left.
The debate
If PPA reached the American continent, which would be its most probable entry point?
- Containers
- Lots of goods are reaching Venezuela from China and Russia. It is a very important risk route.
- The USA import Chinese products, but the containers in merchant ships are not controlled so thoroughly as cruises.
Gong back to the EU, the real problem is that a country can be closed if a wild boar is infected. From that moment a country is considered infected: not the pigs but the whole country.
Regionalisation does not avoid this problem. Therefore, compartmentalisation must be promoted, always that it is well done: a compartmentalisation in which a production system is totally under the control of that production and isolated from the rest. All the production stages are guaranteed and controlled, and the wild fauna will not affect them.
Regionalisation is imposed by the EU directives, and compartmentalisation is the responsibility of the farmer, that proposes the compartment that they can control, that it is totally hermetic, and that they have the control over all the process. The farmer is who carries out all the controls.
Dr. José Manuel Sánchez-Vizcaíno also talked to us about the evolution of the vaccine and of his Vacdiva project: a vaccination model for wild boars and pigs. Wildlife is the main problem for Europeans and Asians, because in Asia there is a greater wild boar population than in Europe, but they have not noticed the problem that this entails yet.
The vaccine that the Vacdiva project is developing will be a safe and effective live vaccine: a vaccination scheme applied to each of the epidemiologic scenarios present in the world.
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