Food safety and veterinary officials from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland are to meet in Italy next month, along with disease experts from across Europe, to discuss how to standardise the collection of epidemiological data on African Swine Fever (ASF).
The meeting, scheduled for November 23-25, is being organised by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) in recognition of the “devastating” nature of ASF and its continued spread across Europe and the Baltic states.
The workshop-style event is also a result of a visit by EFSA’s executive director, Bernhard Url, to the Baltic countries in June 2015, when joint cooperation activities were agreed.
EFSA also commented that ASF is having a “severe socio-economic impact in affected countries” a warning further heightened this week with a reported large outbreak of ASF in Ukraine, not far from the border with Russia. It’s believed this case involves over 300 pigs.