Prohibition of imported animal food
Prohibition of imported animal food
Risk of African swine fever: vacationers should be careful
With the start of the holiday season, it is important to make the risk of introducing the African swine fever (ASP) aware of. This animal disease is harmless to humans, but can have devastating effects on pig farming. Holidaymakers play a crucial role and can help prevent the spread of the disease.
The African swine plague is particularly widespread in large parts of Eastern Europe, Asia as well as in parts of Germany and Italy. The transmission is not only from wild boars to other pigs, but also via infected foods, souvenirs, hunting trophies and other products that come from pigs. The ASP virus can survive both in raw meat as well as in cast or smoked meat products for weeks and months. There is a risk that foods that come from infected pigs contain the virus months later and are contagious for domestic house and wild boars if they eat.
Therefore, the Ministry of Nutrition, Rural Affairs and Consumer Protection on vacationers appeals to leave no food and food residues in nature. Instead, food residues should be disposed of in easy-to-close garbage buckets on rest or parking spaces. Alternatively, they can also be taken home and thereby disposed of wild boar in the trash can with lockable lid. It is of the utmost importance to never throw the food residue into the landscape. This responsible handling of food residues can effectively prevent the spread of the African swine fever.
The ASP outbreaks that have already taken place in the case of held domestic pigs show the urgency of organic safety measures in pig farming. In order to prevent epidemics into the animal stocks, pig farms must take extensive hygiene measures. This includes, among other things, not to feed any food waste to pigs, carry out cleaning and disinfectant measures consistently, to restrict access for non-company people, to wear protective clothing in the stables and to store the feed and indentation material. Workers from abroad should also be instructed accordingly.
In September 2020, a case of the African swine plague in Germany was found for the first time in a wild boar in the Spree-Neiße district in Brandenburg. As a result, cases in wild boars also occurred in the federal states of Saxony and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. On July 15, 2021, the virus was for the first time detected in Brandenburg. This was followed by other regional outbreaks in Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Lower Saxony and finally on May 25, 2022 in the district of Emmendingen in Baden-Württemberg. These outbursts clearly show that human misconduct must be regarded as the main cause of the entry of the ASP virus in pig content.
The ASP dragging into the domestic wild boar population has so far been avoided. Nevertheless, the outbreaks of the ASP had serious economic consequences for agriculture and the subsequent production chain when the pigs were held.
It is the responsibility of each individual to contribute to the containment of the African swine fever. The expansion of the plague can be prevented by conscious handling of food and the proper disposal of food residues. Together we can contribute to the fact that pig farming in Germany remains protected from the ASP.