African swine fever continues to spread in Europe

In Italy, eight more companies have been infected with African swine fever. A total of 13,000 animals are involved. African swine fever first emerged in Italy in January 2022. Since then, the virus has been detected in 1,057 wild pigs and 550 domestic pigs. What is striking about the latest outbreaks is that they are located much further to the northeast outside the original infected area in northern Italy where the outbreaks have been concentrated so far. Sweden Sweden reported its first case of African swine fever on September 7. The virus never occurred before. Since then, seven new cases have been reported in wild boars. The Swedish Animal Health Institute assumes that the infection was introduced through human action. The institute says spread via wild boars is ruled out. The distance to the nearest infected areas is far too great for that. Moreover, the Baltic Sea lies between them. The distance to the infected areas in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland is at least 450 ...