Brussels, 01/02/2002 (Agence Europe) - On Friday, the European Commission adopted a proposal for a directive to introduce new Community legislation to control African Swine Fever, a very serious pig disease common in many parts of Africa for which no EU legislation existed in the past. The proposed measures draw on the new directive to combat Classical Swine Fever, namely: 1) a compulsory immediate notification procedure once cases are discovered; 2) monitoring farms as soon as a case is suspected; and 3) a series of measures to be taken once a case is identified: immediate culling of farmed pigs; the testing of samples from the culled pigs to determine how the virus was spread; destroying the dead animal carcasses; appropriate treatment of animal feed on the infected farms to stamp out the virus; cleaning and disinfecting buildings where pigs are kept, transport vehicles and any litter, manure or slurry that might be infected; isolating and identifying the virus in a laboratory and carrying out a survey of the how the disease is spreading.
Vaccination against African Swine Fever is not available. It is usually transmitted by ticks and originates in Africa where it is endemic in wild pigs. In the EU, the disease only occurs o the island of Sardinia in Italy. It was present for a few decades in the Iberian Peninsula, but was eradicated in the early 1990s. Outbreaks of the disease impair both internal EU and international trade through restrictions on the movement of pigs and pig products. The proposal now goes to the Council for endorsement.