The effect of military activities on the epizootic situation of ASF in the Sumy region

Abstract

Using publicly available information from the State Service of Ukraine on Food Safety and Consumer Protection on the cases of African swine fever in Ukraine, the epidemiological situation regarding ASF in the Sumy region was analyzed, taking into account the consequences of military activities. When considering the ways of spreading the virus, the impact of the armed aggression of the Russian Federation on the main risk factors for the spread of the disease was revealed. In our opinion, wild boars, the number of which has increased by 19.3 % in the region over the past year and which is not regulated by hunters due to the hunting ban, remain a particularly dangerous way of spreading the virus. Hostilities, shelling and the movement of military equipment through the ASF-affected regions directly affect the migration processes of disturbed wildlife, which can quickly spread the virus over long distances, spread it within the population and transmit it to the domestic livestock. An important anthropogenic factor in the spread of the disease is the chaotic contamination of military base areas with unprocessed food residues that may contain a viable virus and, together with other fomites, contaminate the environment. Therefore, state anti-epizootic measures and methods of monitoring infectious diseases should be updated to reflect the realities of today. To control the circulation of the ASF virus among wildlife in the Sumy region under the conditions of a ban on monitoring culling, 25 samples of swabs, feed residues and feces from the feeding grounds of three forestries were studied using Real-Time PCR. In 100 % of the samples, no African swine fever virus DNA was detected, which means a negative result. However, the probable absence of the disease within the studied forestries did not prevent the region from having three outbreaks of ASF among domestic animals during 2022, which is a significant deterioration in the epizootic situation compared to the positive case-free year of 2021. Thus, the epidemiological situation regarding African swine fever in the Sumy region remains unfavorable and requires significant attention due to a number of factors that are dangerous and atypical for peacetime and may significantly affect the spread of numerous infectious diseases.