Key result
Human activities, low biosecurity, and wild boar interactions drive African swine fever spread in Serbia.
Why the study?
African swine fever represents a major threat to the swine industry worldwide with no effective vaccine and control dependent on biosecurity, diagnosis, and culling, but challenges exist in implementing these measures in Serbia.
Human activities and lack of official biosecurity measures are major drivers of African swine fever transmission in Serbian pig production.
Highlights biosecurity gaps in endemic regions; leaves open optimal intervention strategies for similar production systems.
African swine fever (ASF) is a viral disease of domestic pigs and wild boars and currently represents a major threat to the swine industry worldwide. Disease control is impaired by a lack of an effective vaccine and currently, it is dependent on biosecurity measures in pig production, rapid diagnosis, and stamping out of infected herds. Consequently, this swine disease has considerable social-economic significance on national or even regional level. In 2019 for the first time ASF was detected in the domestic swine population (backyards) in the central region of Serbia. From then on, there have been continuous outbreaks of new cases in the population of domestic and wild boars. Considering domestic pig population, in the majority of cases, ASF was detected in small holdings and backyards. The biosecurity measures are not officially required by veterinary regulation and are only given in a form of recommendations. On the other hand, it is not always possible to implement biosecurity measures that are recognized today as essential for sustainable pig production in the old type of industrial pig facilities. Nowadays, in 2021, it became obvious that the domestic pig cycle, human activities involving pigs, or pig-derived meat products are the dominant driver of virus transmission. Additionally, human activities are frequently a risky connection between domestic pigs and wild boars both directly or indirectly. Traditional, culture-related aspects and facts that politicians failed to recognise ASF as a serious issue that causes great economical losses were found to be very important obstacles in disease control.
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Polaček et al. (2021) conducted a review in African swine fever. African swine fever spreading was evaluated. African swine fever spreading in Serbia is primarily driven by human activities, low biosecurity in backyard pig production, and interactions between domestic pigs and wild boars.
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