The EU Food and Veterinary Office published critical reports on Wednesday 13 and Thursday 14 November on measures to control the killer olive bacterium Xylella fastidiosa in Italy and Spain.
The European Commission decided on Thursday 17 May last year to refer Italy to the European Court of Justice for failure by the Italian authorities to take the necessary measures to eradicate the quarantine pest Xylella fastidiosa in the Apulia Region (see EUROPE 12022).
Rapid spread of the disease. The FVO report on Italy shows that the risks of it spreading remain. Due to the high number of infected trees that were not felled in 2018 until after the beginning of the flight period of the vector carrying the disease, "a rapid northward spread of the disease is expected in 2018".
Experts express serious concerns about the false negative results obtained by the ELISA tests as "the undetected infected host plants significantly compromise control measures, in particular the eradication in the buffer zone". "Many infected plants could remain undetected”, the FVO report also states.
The excessive delays in the felling of olive trees infected by the disease have "facilitated the spread of the bacterium during the flight period of the vector" which spreads Xylella fastidiosa. The experts noted that eradication measures were only partially implemented and in the '20 km zone' (around the outbreaks), only 10.7% of the more than three thousand detected positive olive trees had been removed at the time of the audit.
Situation in Spain. Another FVO report on the situation in Spain shows notably that delays in eradication measures imply a "very high" risk of spreading Xylella fastidiosa (the disease has been detected in the Balearic Islands, Alicante and the Madrid region). Only 4,645 almond trees were felled out of a total of 52,200, and it is unlikely that eradication measures will be completed before the beginning of the next flight period for propagating insects, the report states. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)