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 Belgium's food safety agency on Thursday said that African swine
fever (ASF) had been detected in the Etalle district near the French
border, after the death of several wild boars raised suspicions that
the virus was present.
This is the first reported case of the disease in Belgium since
1985.
Western European countries have been trying to avert the spread of
the disease, which is highly contagious among pigs and difficult to
eradicate, after a growing number of cases in Eastern Europe,
including in European Union members such as Romania.
France reacted swiftly to the news of the wild boar cases in
Belgium, with its agriculture ministry announcing reinforced
surveillance in four administrative departments (counties) bordering
Belgium, and extra measures to protect pig farms and
slaughterhouses.
"This new outbreak represents the expansion of the disease, for the
first time during the current pandemic, into Western Europe," said
Paul Sundberg, executive director of the Swine Health Information
Center in the United States.
"This new outbreak may represent a new change in the epidemiologic
situation of ASF worldwide, suggesting that the disease may have
reached pandemic proportions."
The spread of the virus has already led to the slaughtering of
hundreds of thousands of pigs in Eastern Europe, while in China, the
world's biggest pork producer, a series of cases since August has
led to measures including a ban on transporting animals and feeding
food waste to pigs in affected provinces.
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The EU is collectively the world's second-largest pigmeat producer
after China and the largest exporter, with most of its pork industry
concentrated in Germany, Denmark, France and Spain.
Germany earlier this year issued a decree to allow hunters to shoot
wild boar year-round to stop the animals, which can carry African
swine fever, from passing the deadly infection on to farm pigs.
Experts say the virus can also be spread through food products and
by people, even though it is not harmful to humans. There is no
vaccine or treatment for it.
The most recent cases in Europe could be linked to food thrown away
by people who had traveled from zones where the disease is present,
Belgium's food safety agency said in its statement.
"When you start to have cases at quite some distance from previously
reported ones there is concern for everyone," Justin Sherrard,
global strategist, animal protein, at Rabobank, said.
"It's too early to say what the impact could be on production, trade
or prices," he added, however. "For me, the spread of African swine
fever in China is much more pressing from the information we have."
(Reporting by Sybille de La Hamaide and Gus Trompiz in Paris, and
Tom Polansek in Chicago; Editing Mark Heinrich and Louise Heavens)
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