African swine fever: how to prevent an epidemic?

African swine can be affected by pigs of any age and breed. The disease immediately takes on an epidemic character and causes great economic damage to the pig industry. African swine fever does not leave any chance for animals, the mortality from the disease is 100%. In Russia, the infection is not registered, but there is a possibility of its importation from other countries.

The African plague virus differs from the classical DNA size. There are several genotypes of viruses. They are found in lymph, blood, internal organs, secretions of sick pigs. The infection is resistant to decay and drying, the virus is cultivated in the bone marrow and leukocyte cells of sick animals. It has haemadsarbing properties and cytopathic action.

In natural conditions of infection, wild and domestic pigs of all age categories are affected. African swine fever affects healthy animals when combined with virus carriers. Factors for the transmission of a viral pathogen are pastures, food, vehicles on which there have been isolated discharges of infected animals.

African swine fever for humans is completely safe and the AH1N1 virus has nothing to do with it. You can eat pork without fear of an infected animal, as the virus dies during heat treatment. Restrictions on the importation of meat from quarantine areas, above all, are connected with the danger of infection by the swine virus of the country of importation.

For the first time, African swine fever was recorded at the beginning of the last century in South Africa. At the beginning of the disease, before its outbreaks in Portugal and Spain, it was known as a circulating infection, present only in the wildlife population. But it acquired special acuity after the first cases of infection of domestic pigs with lethality to 100%. Particular cunning of the disease is a rapid change in the forms of infection among domestic livestock: from completely lethal to asymptomatic chronic carrier and unanticipated spread.

Today, there is no preventive means by which African swine fever can be prevented, and treatment of the disease is prohibited. When there are foci of infection, total killing of infected pigs is effected by means of a bloodless method, as well as the destruction of the entire pig area within a radius of twenty kilometers from the hearth. Patients infected, as well as animals in contact with them, are eliminated by bloodless slaughter and burning of corpses.

To prevent infection, to protect the health of pigs and, thus, to avoid losses, the owners of subsidiary farms must observe certain rules.

First, it is required to provide access to the pig population for the veterinary services of vaccinating animals against erysipelas and classical plague. It is necessary to keep a livestock in closed premises: sheds, pigsties, and not allow free movement in the territories of settlements and in forest areas.

Every ten-day period it is necessary to process premises for keeping pigs themselves, by means of blood sucking insects, fleas, lice, mites, and also to constantly fight rodents.

It is forbidden to bring pigs from other areas without agreement with the veterinary service, use uncleared food and bojnskie waste as food for animals. It is necessary to limit any links with disadvantaged areas and report all cases of pig diseases.

If an unfavorable economy hits African swine fever, the virus of which can spread to other areas, quarantine is imposed. At the same time, the entire pig population is destroyed. And the corpses of animals, the remains of their food, manure and care items are burned. All rooms are disinfected.