Barcelona | Reuters — Two African swine fever cases have been detected in Spain among wild boar for the first time outside an original outbreak area near Barcelona, prompting additional restrictions on the movement of people and livestock, regional authorities in Catalonia said on Friday.
The new cases were found near the western towns of El Papiol and Molins de Rei in Barcelona’s metropolitan area, where there are no pork farms, officials said.
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WHY IT MATTERS: While Canada is free of African Swine Fever, governments and pork groups have been preparing for the potentially devastating disease, which could close borders to pork exports.
African swine fever is not harmful to humans but spreads rapidly among pigs and wild boar. Outbreaks often prompt countries to restrict their pork imports from countries or regions with active cases.
Spain is the European Union’s leading pork producer, accounting for a quarter of the bloc’s output and with annual exports worth about 3.5 billion euros (C$5.65 billion).
The initial outbreak, Spain’s first since 1994, took place in the Collserola hills to the north of Barcelona, with no cases reported on farms.
“It was an expected outcome that at some point one of the boar would move to the south,” the head of the Catalan agriculture department, Oscar Ordeig, told reporters at a media briefing.
He added that it being a secondary outbreak meant the new measures – including disinfection, collection and management of boar carcasses, drone-based searches and an estimation of wild boar population densities in the infected area – would only affect the two towns.
In total, 155 infected pigs have been found in the Barcelona area, with 13 new cases detected in recent days, he said.
— Reporting by Joan Faus and David Latona
