ASF Remains Most Significant Global Swine Disease Threat

The Associate Director of the Swine Health Information Center suggests the continuing global spread of African Swine Fever validates actions being taken to keep the infection out of North America. As part of its February eNewsletter the Swine Health Information Center has released its monthly domestic and global swine disease surveillance reports.

SHIC Associate Director Dr. Lisa Becton says African Swine Fever remains the most dominant international swine disease threat.

Quote-Dr. Lisa Becton-Swine Health Information Center:

Globally we're still seeing African Swine Fever predominate a lot of the infections that different countries are seeing.For example, Montenegro is the 27th European country that has seen positive ASF in wild boar but it is also still active in other places like South Korea.

This is very concerning as it continues to spread.I think as we watch and monitor how ASF is spreading it solidifies the different actions that we're taking  the U.S. on several different fronts.

Part of that is working with CBP to ensure our imports and products coming into the country are appropriately screened, either using beagle brigades or other mechanisms to try to detect any illegal products that could come into the U.S.But it also highlights the need to have open and active communications with other countries to be able to understand how are they managing wild boar because the U.S. has a significant population of feral swine and it's very important to understand the dynamics of control and movement for ASF in that particular group.All of these things are important and highlight the continued focus that North America needs to prevent the virus from entering into our country.

Dr. Becton notes Foot-and-mouth disease outbreaks have been reported in six countries in Africa so it's also important for people to be aware of the risk factors for entry of this infection into the U.S.SHIC's domestic and global swine disease monitoring reports can be accessed at swinehealth.org.