Background African swine fever
AVP in Poland is far from under control
African swine fever (ASF) has been prevalent in Poland for several years now. The country continues to detect infected wild boars and there have been several outbreaks this year as well. Recently, 2 new ASF infections in pigs that were kept came to the fore.
Poland has been struggling with ASF for more than 5 years. At the time, the virus entered the country via wild boars from Ukraine. Since then, Poland has not been able to eradicate the virus. Over the years, both wild boars and pigs have been found on farms carrying the virus.
Until last year, AVP prevailed mainly in the east of the country. However, since November 2019, the virus has spread and has also been detected in the west. In the meantime, not only wild boars in the west have been infected, but there are also pig farms that are struggling with infections, in July the counter stood at 4 cases among kept pigs.
New infections
There is certainly no question of control over the virus in Poland. In the first 5 months of 2020, 2.531 infected wild boars were detected. The number is already higher than for the whole of 2019, when there were 2.477 cases.
The measures surrounding the coronavirus may have contributed to this increase. Due to a ban on entering state forests and national parks from April 3, hunters could temporarily only carry out their activities outside the closed areas.
The situation on pig farms also seems to be getting increasingly out of hand. Recently, 2 new ASF infections were again reported. One of these infections involved a pig farm with nearly 2.000 pigs in the Biłgoraj district of Lublin. The other case involved a small farm just 50 kilometers from the German border.
culled pigs
To prevent further contamination, all pigs on the relevant farms have been culled. According to statistics, the number of pigs culled in Poland since the beginning of 2020 is about 42.000. Compared to last year's figures, this is also a significant increase. The figures for the whole of 2019 show a culling of approximately 35.400 pigs in a total of 48 outbreaks.
Chanti Oussoren
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