The recent decline in the number of African swine fever (ASF) outbreaks in Europe’s domestic pigs has continued over the past 10 days.
Latest official update puts the total outbreaks in this population at 62 for the year so far.
Six nations have reported one or more outbreaks over this period, according to the Animal Disease Information System from the European Commission (EC; as of March 8). Though the system, the EC monitors notifiable animal diseases in European Union (EU) member states and selected adjacent states.
Registering the most outbreaks for the year to date has been Serbia (22), followed by Romania (20). Compared with the previous edition dated February 23, the national figures have risen by one and four outbreaks, respectively.
ASF outbreaks in pigs have occurred since the start of 2024 in three other countries — Greece, North Macedonia and Ukraine — but their totals have not changed since the third week of February.
Further details on outbreaks of notifiable diseases are included in official notifications from the national veterinary authorities to the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH).
Over the past seven days, only Romania has recorded additional cases in domestic swine. A single outbreak involved a backyard herd of 53 animals in the south of the country.
During the whole of 2023, a total of more than 4,500 outbreaks in domestic pigs were registered with the EC System by 16 European countries.
Outbreak total in wild boar approaches 1,600
The number of ASF outbreaks among the European wild population so far this year had reached 1,598. Cases in 20 countries in the region have contributed to this total, according to the EC’s System (as of March 8).
This figure is 259 higher than the previous update of February 23, with 17 nations recording more cases among wild boar.
With 371 outbreaks, Poland has become the country with the most outbreaks in 2024, followed by Italy (348), Bulgaria (195), Latvia (146), Lithuania (115) and Hungary (114).
All these states recorded new cases since the previous EC update, as did Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, the Czech Republic (Czechia), Germany, Greece, Moldova, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Ukraine.
For the Czech Republic, the latest wild boar testing positive for the ASF virus is the country’s second case of 2024, according to the state veterinary service. Although the infected animal was found in the same northern region as previous cases (Liberec), it was found outside the designated infected zone. As a result, the authority reports that the closed zone will be extended.
Since Italy’s first ASF cases in early 2022, the number of ASF cases in its wild boar population has reached 1,693. This is according to the regional veterinary authority IZSAM (as of March 12). So far, cases have been confirmed in 13 provinces in eight regions of the country.
Since the previous update on March 4, additional cases have been detected in the southern region of Campania, in Emilia-Romagna and Lombardy in the north, and the northwestern regions of Liguria and Piedmont.
View our continuing coverage of the global African swine fever situation.
