Management of a Focal Introduction of ASF Virus in Wild Boar: The Belgian Experience

peer reviewed ; African swine fever (ASF) is a fatal disease of suids that was detected in wild boar in Belgium in September 2018. The measures implemented to stop the spread and eliminate the African swine fever virus consisted of creating restriction zones, organising efficient search and removal of carcasses, constructing wire fences, and depopulating wild boar in the area surrounding the infected zone. The ASF management zone included the infected and the white zones and covered 1106 km² from which 7077 wild boar have been removed. A total of 5338 wild boars have been qPCR-tested and 833 h... Mehr ...

Verfasser: Licoppe, Alain
De Waele, Valérie
Malengreaux, Céline
Paternostre, Julien
Van Goethem, Amaury
Desmecht, Daniel
Herman, Marc
Linden, Annick
Dokumenttyp: journal article
Erscheinungsdatum: 2023
Verlag/Hrsg.: MDPI AG
Schlagwörter: African swine fever / control measures / fence / epidemic / wild boar depopulation / Life sciences / Veterinary medicine & animal health / Sciences du vivant / Médecine vétérinaire & santé animale
Sprache: Englisch
Permalink: https://search.fid-benelux.de/Record/base-26514195
Datenquelle: BASE; Originalkatalog
Powered By: BASE
Link(s) : https://orbi.uliege.be/handle/2268/299635

peer reviewed ; African swine fever (ASF) is a fatal disease of suids that was detected in wild boar in Belgium in September 2018. The measures implemented to stop the spread and eliminate the African swine fever virus consisted of creating restriction zones, organising efficient search and removal of carcasses, constructing wire fences, and depopulating wild boar in the area surrounding the infected zone. The ASF management zone included the infected and the white zones and covered 1106 km² from which 7077 wild boar have been removed. A total of 5338 wild boars have been qPCR-tested and 833 have been detected ASF-positive. The search effort amounted to 60,631 h with a main focus on the infected zone (88%). A total of 277 km of fences have been set up. The main cause of mortality in the infected zone was the virus itself, while hunting, trapping, and night shooting were used together to reduce the wild boar density in the surrounding white zones. After continuous dispersion of the virus until March 2019, the epidemic wave stopped, and the last fresh positive case was discovered in August 2019. Hence, Belgium was declared free of the disease in November 2020.