The Veterinary Council with the Canadian Pork Council says the spread of African Swine Fever into Germany highlights the importance of biosecurity. For the first time African Swine Fever was recently diagnosed in wild boar inside Germany.
Dr. Egan Brockhoff, the Veterinary Counsel with the Canadian Pork Council and a member of the Swine Innovation Porc Coordinated African Swine Fever Research Working Group, says since that first diagnosis many more wild boar have been found either dead and infected or infected.
Clip-Dr. Egan Brockhoff-Canadian Pork Council:
Unfortunately, that virus has moved into Germany. We've also seen the virus continue to move throughout Poland with some significant uptick in Poland as well as some other eastern European countries. To see the virus move into Germany serves as a huge reminder that we are all still susceptible to African Swine Fever virus moving and moving through human means.
This is a human driven disease. I was speaking with a colleague from Taiwan and he was reporting to me on the significant number of pork products that have been seized from travelers returning from China and that about 40 percent of all pork products seized at the Taiwan border have been ASF positive.
With Germany becoming infected it just shows us that the virus continues to move. We continue to see this virus move significantly in eastern Europe and of course throughout southeast Asia and so it remains a very real concern for us that this virus could find itself in Canada or North America in the future.
Source : Farmscape