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African swine fever, which is highly contagious and especially deadly to domestic and wild pigs, has reached Germany. “Unfortunately, the suspicion has been confirmed,” Federal Minister for Agriculture Julia Klöckner (CDU) said in Berlin on Thursday. The epidemic has been present in Europe for years and has apparently been introduced to Germany from Eastern Europe. Now more bodies are being searched in the region.
“The virus is extremely infectious and is easily transmitted,” Klöckner said. Therefore, now the so-called restriction areas must be defined. This means areas where the disease is suspected. In the affected state of Brandenburg, where the infected wild boar carcass was found, the first villages will be cordoned off today.
However, consuming pork is harmless: “African swine fever is harmless to humans,” Klöckner said. “Even contaminated meat can be consumed by the consumer without problems.”
The corpse of the wild boar was found on the German-Polish border on Wednesday. The suspected case was then reviewed Thursday night by the Friedrich Loeffler Institute, which, as a national reference laboratory, clears up suspected cases.
“We have analyzed three samples and the results are clear,” said the institute’s director, Thomas Mettenleiter, in the morning in Berlin. “So far this has been an isolated case and we cannot estimate how many animals are still affected in Germany.” The corpse in the Brandenburg district of Spree-Neisse had already been largely rotten. “So it’s been a long time since the virus could have spread even further,” Mettenleiter said.
For a long time it was feared that the animal disease, which is harmless to humans, would spread to Germany. It has been circulating in Poland for months. In March, a wild boar that died of swine fever was discovered in the neighboring country just over ten kilometers from the border with Germany.
Farmers on alert
Farmers are very concerned about the economic impact. With the current evidence of swine fever, Germany is losing its “disease-free” status and there could be a risk of bans on the export of pork to non-EU countries, for example Asia. In Brandenburg alone, according to the state farmers’ association, in November 2019 around 750,000 pigs were raised on some 170 farms. From there, the piglets are exported to other federal states and EU countries in particular.
Agriculture Minister Klöckner has announced the first measures to combat the disease.
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If an infected carcass is found from a wild or domestic pig, a “danger zone” must be defined and a buffer zone must be established. In that case, domestic pigs and pork, with some exceptions, cannot be removed from these areas.
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In the event of an outbreak among domestic pigs, all animals on affected farms would have to be culled.
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Restricted areas will be established within a radius of at least three kilometers around the company and observation areas within a radius of at least ten kilometers.
Transmission can also take place through humans. “We therefore ask travelers, drivers and carers coming to Germany from Eastern Europe to take special care,” said the Federal Minister of Agriculture. For example, raw sausages should not be thrown out of containers, as meat products carry the virus and can be eaten by wild boars. “The virus is very stable and survives even in frozen meat,” Klöckner said. Road traffic at the border could also be restricted by additional steps: “The virus not only comes on all fours, but also on two wheels,” Klöckner said.
The minister did not want to comment on the aid to the affected companies. “So far it’s just a wild boar, we just don’t know how far the virus has gone and if domestic pigs are already affected.”
