Combining Hunting and Intensive Carcass Removal to Eradicate African Swine Fever from Wild Boar Populations

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vincenzo Gervasi ◽  
Vittorio Guberti
Pathogens ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 757
Author(s):  
Sandra Barroso-Arévalo ◽  
Jose A. Barasona ◽  
Estefanía Cadenas-Fernández ◽  
José M. Sánchez-Vizcaíno

African swine fever virus (ASFv) is one of the most challenging pathogens to affect both domestic and wild pigs. The disease has now spread to Europe and Asia, causing great damage to the pig industry. Although no commercial vaccine with which to control the disease is, as yet, available, some potential vaccine candidates have shown good results in terms of protection. However, little is known about the host immune mechanisms underlying that protection, especially in wild boar, which is the main reservoir of the disease in Europe. Here, we study the role played by two cytokines (IL-10 and IFN-γ) in wild boar orally inoculated with the attenuated vaccine candidate Lv17/WB/Rie1 and challenged with a virulent ASFv genotype II isolate. A group of naïve wild boar challenged with the latter isolate was also established as a control group. Our results showed that both cytokines play a key role in protecting the host against the challenge virus. While high levels of IL-10 in serum may trigger an immune system malfunctioning in challenged animals, the provision of stable levels of this cytokine over time may help to control the disease. This, together with high and timely induction of IFN-γ by the vaccine candidate, could help protect animals from fatal outcomes. Further studies should be conducted in order to support these preliminary results and confirm the role of these two cytokines as potential markers of the evolution of ASFV infection.


Animals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 1208
Author(s):  
Jun-Sik Lim ◽  
Timothée Vergne ◽  
Son-Il Pak ◽  
Eutteum Kim

In September 2019, African swine fever (ASF) was reported in South Korea for the first time. Since then, more than 651 ASF cases in wild boars and 14 farm outbreaks have been notified in the country. Despite the efforts to eradicate ASF among wild boar populations, the number of reported ASF-positive wild boar carcasses have increased recently. The purpose of this study was to characterize the spatial distribution of ASF-positive wild boar carcasses to identify the risk factors associated with the presence and number of ASF-positive wild boar carcasses in the affected areas. Because surveillance efforts have substantially increased in early 2020, we divided the study into two periods (2 October 2019 to 19 January 2020, and 19 January to 28 April 2020) based on the number of reported cases and aggregated the number of reported ASF-positive carcasses into a regular grid of hexagons of 3-km diameter. To account for imperfect detection of positive carcasses, we adjusted spatial zero-inflated Poisson regression models to the number of ASF-positive wild boar carcasses per hexagon. During the first study period, proximity to North Korea was identified as the major risk factor for the presence of African swine fever virus. In addition, there were more positive carcasses reported in affected hexagons with high habitat suitability for wild boars, low heat load index (HLI), and high human density. During the second study period, proximity to an ASF-positive carcass reported during the first period was the only significant risk factor for the presence of ASF-positive carcasses. Additionally, low HLI and elevation were associated with an increased number of ASF-positive carcasses reported in the affected hexagons. Although the proportion of ASF-affected hexagons increased from 0.06 (95% credible interval (CrI): 0.05–0.07) to 0.09 (95% CrI: 0.08–0.10), the probability of reporting at least one positive carcass in ASF-affected hexagons increased from 0.49 (95% CrI: 0.41–0.57) to 0.73 (95% CrI: 0.66–0.81) between the two study periods. These results can be used to further advance risk-based surveillance strategies in the Republic of Korea.


Authorea ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fekede Joka ◽  
HaoNing Wang ◽  
Hein van Gils ◽  
Wang Xiaolong

Author(s):  
Nicolai Denzin ◽  
Frithjof Helmstaedt ◽  
Carolina Probst ◽  
Franz J. Conraths

African swine fever (ASF) is a viral infection of pigs and represents a major threat to animal health and trade. Due to the high tenacity of the causative virus also in carcasses of wild boar, contacts of wild boar with infectious carcasses are regarded an important driver of the so-called habitat cycle. The latter is believed to play a major role in maintaining the present ASF situation in wild boar in Europe. Therefore, search campaigns and timely removal and disposal of carcasses are considered important disease control approaches. If timely disposal is not feasible due to logistic reasons, deterrence of wild boar could be a provisionary option. The performance of seven deterrents (physical and chemical) was tested in a forest near Greifswald, Germany. Carcasses as entities of attraction for wild boar were substituted by luring sites. It could be demonstrated that certain physical (LED-Blinkers, aluminum stripes) and chemical (Wildschwein-Stopp™, Hukinol™) deterrents are capable of reducing significantly the odds of wild boar contacts to one third. It is recommended to carry a choice of the aforementioned, reasonable and easy to apply deterrents, when carcass search campaigns are launched in case of an outbreak of ASF in wild boar.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jose A. Barasona ◽  
Estefanía Cadenas-Fernández ◽  
Aleksandra Kosowska ◽  
Sandra Barroso-Arévalo ◽  
Belén Rivera ◽  
...  

African swine fever (ASF) is a highly lethal infectious disease that affects domestic pigs and wild boar. Outbreaks of ASF have grown considerably in the last decade causing important economic consequences for the swine industry. Its control is hampered by the lack of an effective treatment or vaccine. In Europe, the wild boar is a key wild reservoir for ASF. The results of the oral vaccination trial of wild boar with Lv17/WB/Rie1 are hope for this problem. However, this vaccine candidate has certain safety concerns, since it is a naturally attenuated vaccine. Therefore, the current study aims to evaluate the safety of this vaccine candidate in terms of overdose (high dose) and repeated doses (revaccination) in wild boar. Low-dose orally vaccinated animals developed only a slight transient fever after vaccination and revaccination. This was also the case for most of the high-dose vaccinated wild boar, except for one of them which succumbed after revaccination. Although this fatality was related to hierarchical fights between animals, we consider that further studies are required for clarification. Considering these new results and the current epidemiological situation of ASF in wild boar, this vaccine prototype is a promising tool for the control of the disease in these wild populations, although further studies are needed.


2019 ◽  
Vol 75 (02) ◽  
pp. 6186-2019
Author(s):  
ZYGMUNT PEJSAK ◽  
MARIAN TRUSZCZYŃSKI ◽  
KAZIMIERZ TARASIUKL

In the introduction of this paper the increasingly accepted nomenclature of basic expressions used in veterinary epidemiology is presented. This is in accordance with the 2018 Edition of Wiley-Blackwell Veterinary Epidemiology, by Michael Thrusfield. Pandemia and not Panzootia is used for large scale outbreaks of infectious diseases also in relation to animals characterizing significantly increased morbidity and mortatlity over a wide geographic area, including countries, continents or even the whole globe and causing significant economic, social and even political disruption. It is underlined that the pandemics of infectious diseases of animals will continue to increase because of the growing transboundary trade and transportation of animals and animal products and increasing international contacts of humans. In the control of pandemics of humans, particularly, for example of influenza of the years 1918-1919, and also in 1968, but also pandemics of other ethiology occurring in humans the World Health Organisation (WHO) took the leading position. In case of avian and swine influenza as well as in pandemics occurring in animals, the leading position in prevention, control and eradication belongs to World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) supported by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. The main part of this paper is devoted to the characterization of the pandemic of African Swine Fever (ASF) which started in 2007 in Georgia, transmitted from Africa. Countries, where ASF virus (ASFV) was confirmed by laboratory tests are mentioned in the text of this paper. They are located in Eurasia. Among them are countries, being members of the European Union (EU). The routs of spreading of the ASFV in wild boar and swine are given, the methods of ASF control in EU were presented. The main vector of the ASF spread in EU, is the wild boar and the humans. Future distribution of the pandemia spread of ASFV is difficult to predict. Veterinary services of many countries, practitioners and scientists are working intensively to understand epidemiology of ASF and to stop the spread of ASFV.


Author(s):  
Paul Deutschmann ◽  
Jutta Pikalo ◽  
Martin Beer ◽  
Sandra Blome

African swine fever (ASF) is one of the most important viral diseases of domestic pigs and wild boar. Apart from endemic cycles in Africa, ASF is now continuously spreading in Europe and Asia. As ASF leads to severe but unspecific clinical signs and high lethality, early pathogen detection is of utmost importance. Recently, “point-of-care” (POC) tests have been intensively discussed for the use in remote areas but also in the context of on-farm epidemiological investigations and wild boar carcass screening. Along these lines, the INGEZIM ASFV CROM Ag lateral flow assay (Eurofins Technologies Ingenasa) promises virus antigen detection under field conditions within minutes. In the present study, we evaluated the performance of the assay with selected high-quality reference blood samples, and also with real field samples from wild boar carcasses in different stages of decay from the ongoing ASF outbreak in Germany. While we observed a sensitivity of roughly 77% in freeze-thawed matrices of close to ideal quality, our approach to simulate field conditions in direct carcass testing without any modification resulted in a drastically reduced sensitivity of only 12.5%. Freeze thawing increased the sensitivity to roughly 44% which mirrored the overall sensitivity of 49% in the total data set of carcass samples. A diagnostic specificity of 100% was observed. However, most of the German ASF cases in wild boar would have been missed using the lateral flow assay (LFA) alone. Therefore, the antigen-specific LFA should not be regarded as a substitute for any OIE listed diagnostic method and has very limited use for carcass testing at the point of care. For optimized LFA antigen tests, the sensitivity with field samples must be significantly increased. An improved sensitivity is seen with freeze-thawed samples, which may indicate problems in the accessibility of ASFV antigen.


2018 ◽  
Vol 65 (6) ◽  
pp. 1588-1596 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tomasz Podgórski ◽  
Krzysztof Śmietanka

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (32) ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Ndlovu ◽  
A.-L. Williamson ◽  
L. Heath ◽  
O. Carulei

ABSTRACT We report here the genome sequences of three African swine fever virus isolates obtained from a domestic pig (Zaire [Zaire]), a warthog (RSA/W1/1999 [South Africa]), and a European wild boar (RSA/2/2004 [South Africa]) belonging to genotypes IV, XX, and XX, respectively. This report increases the number of genotype XX, wild boar, and warthog reference sequences available.


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