Animal health and welfare authorities have reported 585 outbreaks of African swine fever in Romania, a slight drop in the number of cases since the last evaluation a week ago.
The National Authority for Veterinary Health and Food Safety said that more than half a million pigs had been euthanized since the outbreak of the virus which has caused 400 million lei damages, news.ro reported.
The agency said that new cases only affected wild boar and reported 11 fewer outbreaks than on January 7. It said a total of 2,300 outbreaks had been stamped out since the first outbreak in July 2017.
Some 15,000 pig farmers have received compensation since the first outbreak, the agency said.
African swine fever virus causes a hemorrhagic fever with high mortality rates in domestic pigs; some isolates can cause death of animals as quickly as a week after infection.
No vaccine or treatment for African Swine Fever which have ravaged China and other Asian countries.
Other European countries whose domestic pigs have been hit are Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Serbia, Ukraine and, for the first time, Slovakia.
In Romania and Bulgaria, hundreds of thousands of pigs were culled last year. wiping out almost 10 percent of the EU members’ industries.
