African Swine Fever Inches Closer To The U.S. With Infections In Dominican Republic

By Seth Bodine

A viral outbreak in hogs just off the U.S. coast has U.S. officials ramping up efforts to make sure it doesn’t decimate the American pork industry.

African swine fever, an infectious and lethal virus for pigs, has been detected in the Dominican Republic — the closest it’s been to the U.S. in 40 years. 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory confirmed the virus in pigs in the country through a surveillance program on July 28. The Dominican Republic has reported cases in 11 provinces of the country, according to a report from the Swine Health Information Center. 

The disease exclusively infects pigs — not humans, said Paul Sundberg, the executive director of the Swine Health Information Center. But it’s highly infectious and lethal for pigs, he said. The spread to the U.S. could prove disastrous.

“It would stop our pork exports, and we export between 25- 30% of our product right now,” Sundberg said. 

When the Dominican Republic dealt with the disease from 1978 to 1980, it led to 192,473 pigs being culled. Cuba, Brazil and Haiti also had the virus at the time, which led to the culling of another 1.2 million pigs.