African swine fever (ASF) has been detected on a small farm in eastern Germany, dealing a further blow to the country’s struggling pig sector.
The Friedrich Loeffler Institute (FLI) confirmed the virus on a holding with just 11 animals in the city of Cottbus, in Brandenburg, where ASF has first found in wild boar in September 2020.
The Brandenburg Ministry for Social Affairs, Health, Integration and Consumer Protection (MSGIV) confirmed that ASF restrictions were immediately put in place around the holding and that the pigs in the herd have been slaughtered.
Investigations into the cause of the outbreak are underway. Secretary of State for Consumer Protection Dr Antje Töpfer once again appealed to all pig farms and in particular to all small farms to strictly comply with the biosecurity measures in place to prevent further outbreaks in domestic pigs.
While thousands of cases of ASF have been confirmed in wild in Brandenburg and the neighbouring state of Lower Saxony, there have only been a handful of cases in domestic pigs. The first was in Brandenburg on two small farms in July 2021, while the virus was confirmed in Lower Saxony in July 2022. There have been cases outside Germany’s ASF core area in November 2021 and near the French border in May 2022.
The latest case will undoubtedly come as a further blow to Germany’s efforts to regain its export markets that have been lost since the first case in wild boar in September 2020, particularly China.
However, German pig industry body ISN said, given that the affected farm is within the existing restriction zones in Brandenburg, the development will not have a big impact on the pig market.
“The task now is to keep the damage to the ground as low as possible. There is hope that the virus can be combated quickly and effectively, since ASF events in domestic pig populations can be narrowed down much better and thus combated in a more targeted manner than in wild boar populations.”
“The new ASF case once again impressively shows how important biosecurity measures are in pig farms – no matter how small or large the farm is,” it said.
The farming body added that was ‘unacceptable for an entrepreneur, regardless of whether it is a piglet producer or fattener, to have his existence endangered because of a tiny hobby’. It urged pig keepers to regularly check the effectiveness of their biosecurity measures ‘to avoid mistakes and the resulting serious consequences for the company’.
“It is now crucial that the causes of the entry are meticulously determined and that the control strategies and on-site monitoring that have already been launched take effect in order to prevent further spread.” ISN added.