Europe sees rising African Swine Fever cases in pigs
The spread of African Swine Fever (ASF) is gathering pace on the European continent, with a rise in domestic pig outbreaks since the start of summer.
In June the disease was detected in wild boar in western Germany for the first time. Since then, ASF has been confirmed in 39 wild boar in the state of Hesse, which neighbours the highest pig-producing state in Germany, North Rhine-Westphalia.
There have also been further detections of ASF in wild boar in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, to the west of Hesse.
Four outbreaks of ASF in domestic pigs have now been reported in the same area of Hesse where infected wild boar have been found.
In June, both Poland and Germany reported their first outbreaks of ASF in domestic pigs of 2024. To date in 2024, Poland has reported 19 outbreaks of ASF in domestic pigs while Germany has reported four outbreaks.
Efforts to control wild boar populations are being made in Germany, Poland, and northern Italy where cases continue to be detected in wild boar.
Find the latest full report on the GOV.UK website [PDF].
For more comprehensive monitoring of animal disease outbreaks in UK and in other parts of the world, visit the GOV.UK webpages.
Author
Oli Hill
As Head of Communications, Oli creates and oversees the content published on AIC's website, emails, Member briefings, print publications, and social media. A qualified multimedia journalist, he previously spent six years working at Farmers Weekly magazine as a Senior Reporter on the arable team, and latterly as Community Editor. More recently he was Communications Manager at Red Tractor.