Abstract
African swine fever (ASF) remains the most serious pig infectious disease, and its persistence in domestic pigs and wild boar (WB) is a threat for the global industry. The surveillance of WB plays a central role in controlling the disease and rapidly detecting new cases. As we are close to eradicating ASF, the need to find any possible pockets of infection is even more important. In this context, passive surveillance is the method of choice for effective surveillance in WB. Considering the time and economic resources related to passive surveillance, to prioritize these activities, we developed a standardized methodology able to identify areas where WB surveillance should be focused on. Using GIS-technology, we divided a specific Sardinian infected area into 1 km2 grids (a total of 3953 grids). Variables related to WB density, ASF cases during the last three years, sex and age of animals, and the type of land were associated with each grid. Epidemiological models were used to identify the areas with both a lack of information and an high risk of hidden ASFV persistence. The results led to the creation of a graphic tool providing specific indications about areas where surveillance should be a priority.
Highlights
African swine fever (ASF) is a devastating disease for both domestic and wild pig populations, representing the primary challenge for the whole European agricultural sector, in particular the pig farming industry [1]
The main surveillance for ASF is limited to hunting activities during November–January, while the active searching of carcasses is almost absent, and passive surveillance is limited to wild boar roadkill [22]
Data from 6488 wild boar tested within the Goceano–Baronia were used to fit the two mixed-effect logistic regression (MELR) models
Summary
African swine fever (ASF) is a devastating disease for both domestic and wild pig populations, representing the primary challenge for the whole European agricultural sector, in particular the pig farming industry [1]. ASF disease is caused by the African swine fever virus (ASFV), a large, enveloped double-stranded DNA virus, the only member of the Asfarviridae family [2], which mainly infect myeloid cells, such as monocytes, macrophages, and dendritic cells [3]. The negative consequences of ASFV spread are of global proportion [4,5,6]. The economic and social consequences amount to dozens of billions of euros lost yearly and potential repercussions for individual livelihoods and national food security [7,8,9]. The disease’s epidemiological circle does not have a unique identification and includes domestic pigs (Sus scrofa domesticus) and wild species (e.g., wild boar), as reported in Europe, and Phacoerus africanus or Potamochoerus spp. in Africa, with complications due to the presence of soft ticks as vector (genus Ornithodoros) [10,11,12,13].
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