New approach to prevent the spread of ASF

According to a recent press release by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the spread of African Swine Fever (ASF) is especially hard to control in Europe due to the great difficulty to reduce disease spread among wildlife, e.g., wild boar.

Therefore, FAO’s Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia teamed up with modelling experts from the Autonomous University of Barcelona and a disease control specialist from the Lithuanian State Food and Veterinary Service to optimize the search for wild boar carcasses.

Early detection was paramount to implementing measures to control or at least prevent further spread, the organization stated and added that the search in both affected and at-risk countries was "time- and resource-consuming, since the animals tend to die in covered and shaded areas."

"Finding one of the first dead wild boar following the introduction of African swine fever into a new area offers the only chance to control the disease by implementing a series of measures, such as banning hunting activities, fencing in defined areas, and hunting management to prevent further spread," said Daniel Beltran-Alcrudo, technical advisor on animal health.

Hence, the study aims to provide recommendations to design a search strategy for early detection to monitor and control the disease. The study analyzed the temporal and spatial distribution of almost 22 000 ASF-positive wild boar carcasses during 2017 to 2021. The carcasses were found in Bulgaria, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Poland, Serbia and Slovakia.

Results showed the highest likelihood of finding ASF-positive wild boar carcasses in transition areas between woodland and shrub, green urban areas and mixed forests. The presence of a path and a higher abundance of wild boar also slightly increased the odds.

The temporal analysis evidenced that most countries located in southern latitudes showed a higher number of cases between January and April. In contrast, in northern latitudes, there was no clear temporal pattern. The results complement other FAO initiatives to tackle the devastating spread of ASF in Europe, such as a mobile app for reporting wild boar carcasses, the development of a risk-assessment tool, and hands-on training and simulation exercises on how to respond to finding ASF-infected carcasses.