Abstract
African swine fever (ASF) is a notifiable viral disease of pigs and wild boars that could lead to serious economic losses for the entire European pork industry. As no effective treatment or vaccination is available, disease prevention and control rely on strictly enforced biosecurity measures tailored to the specific risk factors of ASF introduction within domestic pig populations. Here, we present a review addressing the risk factors associated with different European pig farming systems in the context of the actual epidemiological scenario. A list of keywords was combined into a Boolean query, “African swine fever” AND (“Risk factors” OR “Transmission” OR “Spread” OR “Pig farming” OR “Pigs” OR “Wild boars”); was run on 4 databases; and resulted in 52 documents of interest being reviewed. Based on our review, each farming system has its own peculiar risk factors: commercial farms, where best practices are already in place, may suffer from unintentional breaches in biosecurity, while backyard and outdoor farms may suffer from poor ASF awareness, sociocultural factors, and contact with wild boars. In the literature selected for our review, human-related activities and behaviours are presented as the main risks, but we also stress the need to implement biosecurity measures also tailored to risks factors that are specific for the different pig farming practices in the European Union (EU).
Highlights
African Swine Fever virus (ASFV), a large DNA virus belonging to the family Asfaviridae, is one of the most worrying swine pathogens, and its spread into new countries of the European Union (EU) would lead to devastating and unrecoverable economic losses to the entire swine production sector
Pathogens 2021, 10, 84 of African swine fever (ASF) in south-eastern Europe in 2019, considered the following as the main risk factors for ASF spread in domestic pig populations: swill feeding, the presence of free-ranging pigs in some areas of a country, the presence of a substantially high number of smallholders in the country, and home-slaughtering [10]
We grouped the risk factors presented by the literature selected within our review process into 7 categories: biosecurity, swill feeding and slaughtering on farm, trading of pigs and products, human activity factors and farm management, sociocultural risk factors, ASF in wild boars as a risk for neighbouring farms, and ticks and other blood feeding arthropods
Summary
African Swine Fever virus (ASFV), a large DNA virus belonging to the family Asfaviridae, is one of the most worrying swine pathogens, and its spread into new countries of the EU would lead to devastating and unrecoverable economic losses to the entire swine production sector. Rather than taking into account the size of the farm or the type of establishment (breeding, fattening, etc.), this classification considers the commercial attitude of the holdings In this way, it considers the risk of spreading the disease by trading pigs and the risk for the farm of being exposed to an external source of infection, such as the presence of infected wild pigs or soft ticks. A peculiar subtype of outdoor farming, common in the south-eastern countries of Europe and the Iberian peninsula, is free range farming, a traditional practice in which autochthonous pig breeds are usually reared in extensive or semi-extensive production systems that may facilitate contact between pigs and wild boars, contributing to the possible spread of ASFV [10]. As ASF is a disease transmitted by contact with other infected animals or fomites, outbreaks in domestic pigs have been correlated with wild boar cases, pointing to a link between the risk of ASFV introduction into domestic pig herds and the degree of contamination of the external environment [11]
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