Abstract
BackgroundThe recent occurrence and spread of African swine fever (ASF) in Eastern Europe is perceived as a serious risk for the pig industry in the European Union (EU). In order to estimate the potential risk of ASF virus (ASFV) entering the EU, several pathways of introduction were previously assessed separately. The present work aimed to integrate five of these assessments (legal imports of pigs, legal imports of products, illegal imports of products, fomites associated with transport and wild boar movements) into a modular tool that facilitates the visualization and comprehension of the relative risk of ASFV introduction into the EU by each analyzed pathway.ResultsThe framework’s results indicate that 48% of EU countries are at relatively high risk (risk score 4 or 5 out of 5) for ASFV entry for at least one analyzed pathway. Four of these countries obtained the maximum risk score for one pathway: Bulgaria for legally imported products during the high risk period (HRP); Finland for wild boar; Slovenia and Sweden for legally imported pigs during the HRP. Distribution of risk considerably differed from one pathway to another; for some pathways, the risk was concentrated in a few countries (e.g., transport fomites), whereas other pathways incurred a high risk for 4 or 5 countries (legal pigs, illegal imports and wild boar).ConclusionsThe modular framework, developed to estimate the risk of ASFV entry into the EU, is available in a public domain, and is a transparent, easy-to-interpret tool that can be updated and adapted if required. The model’s results determine the EU countries at higher risk for each ASFV introduction route, and provide a useful basis to develop a global coordinated program to improve ASFV prevention in the EU.
Highlights
The recent occurrence and spread of African swine fever (ASF) in Eastern Europe is perceived as a serious risk for the pig industry in the European Union (EU)
The model and its results are available as an Excel file in a public domain and as Additional file 1
The risk scores of ASF virus (ASFV) introduction by the five pathways into each EU member state are presented in the results column on each pathway spreadsheet, and are summarized in Table 2 and in the “overall results summary” worksheet of Additional file 1
Summary
The recent occurrence and spread of African swine fever (ASF) in Eastern Europe is perceived as a serious risk for the pig industry in the European Union (EU). The European Union (EU) has an ever-increasingly highly industrialized and specialized pig production sector [1], and is the second largest pig producer in the world with 22.6 million tons of pork produced in 2012 [2] To maintain this high level of production and the current swine health status, it is crucial to prevent the introduction and re-introduction of infectious diseases, OIE notifiable diseases such as African swine fever (ASF). ASF is one of the most devastating swine diseases given its high mortality, economic losses as a result of trade restrictions, and the fact that no vaccine is available for its control [3] This viral infectious disease has been widespread on the African continent, where it still remains in many countries. In other European countries and some territories of the American continent (e.g., Brazil [6], the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Cuba [7]), ASF virus (ASFV) was introduced in the 20th century, but was swiftly eradicated by drastic control programs
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