Page 14 - Sept

Photo 1: Free-ranging domestic pigs in Georgia feeding next to a waste bin, illustrating one of the main mecha- nisms of disease spread in domestic pigs. Photo: Vittorio Guberti
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Page 14 – Australian Pork Newspaper, September 2022
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Figure 1: From warthogs to wild boar, adaptive modification of ASFV transmission cycles on the way from Africa to Europe.
ASF in Europe’s wild boar
n Part 1 - Cycles and distribution
THE following is an excerpt from ‘African swine fever in wild boar populations – ecology and biosecurity’ created by the Food and Ag- riculture Organisation of the United Nations, World Organisation for Animal Health and the European Commission.
Animals are infected when piglets and develop life-long immunity.
main risk factors in this system.
African swine fever is a disease of pigs, which was originally associ- ated with the ecological niche of the ticks of the genus ornithodoros and the common warthog – phacochoerus africanus – in sub-Saharan Africa.
In the past, this kind of transmission cycle was also reported from the Iberian Peninsula.
Thereafter, it has spread northwards, primarily in the domestic pig popu- lation, moving from the Caucasian countries to the Russian Federation, Belarus and Ukraine, and then to other European countries.
Warthogs and ticks, which naturally co-in- habit burrows, can sus- tain the transmission cycle of this virus for an unlimited time.
Again, in Africa, driven by the growing human population and in- creasing numbers of do- mestic pigs, ASF spread to areas where it had never occurred naturally before.
Finally, the most recent step in the evolution of the biological cycle of ASFV and its geograph- ical spread is related to the formation of the ‘wild boar-habitat cycle’ – see Figure 1, cycle 4 – which has developed in northern and eastern Europe.
It is a well-established natural host–vector– pathogen system, the syl- vatic transmission cycle of ASF, with a distribu- tion restricted to parts of the African continent.
In these new areas, its transmission cycle no longer involves ticks or warthogs – see Figure 1, cycle 3.
This novel host–path- ogen–environment system has steadily expanded the range of ASF in Eu- rope, facilitated by the exceptional stability and resilience of ASFV in the environment and
Warthogs are naturally resistant to the effects of the African swine fever virus and do not usually develop clinical disease.
The virus spread in do- mestic pigs is facilitated by human activity.
In Africa, the virus has shown a trend to shift to- wards a more anthropo- genic cycle – see Figure 1, cycle 2 – in which domestic pigs instead of warthogs assumed the role of an epidemiolog- ical reservoir, with the occasional involvement of ornithodoros ticks.
A similar, purely do- mestic, pig cycle, has also evolved in the Cau- casus since 2007, when the genotype II virus was first introduced in Georgia.
Movements of animals due to trade, the sale of infected meat and free- range pig farming are the
* continued P15
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