ASF Germany: Virus pops up 60km further in Saxony

A sign warning hikers for ASF in wild boar, and asking them to close the gate. - Photo: Vincent ter Beek & Kees van Dooren

African Swine Fever virus (ASFv) has been found in a wild boar carcass that was found 60km away from earlier cases in Saxony state.

The carcass was found near the Radeburg junction, of the A13 motorway running from Dresden to Berlin, as the crow flies at roughly 90km from the border with Poland. The wild boar had been shot. At the moment, the exact location has not been made public; the purple star on the map below indicates the approximate location.

The animal was shot in Meissen district. For Saxony state, it is the first case of ASF outside the Görlitz district, where so far, 548 wild boar had been found, positive for African Swine Fever. The confirmation was done by the German Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut. A local crisis centre has already been set up and works closely with the animal disease control centre.

The positive find was proven within the framework of the Saxon ASF monitoring programme, according to which all wild boar that have been shot healthy are to be examined for ASF. The 1st evidence of ASF in Saxony state was detected on October 31, 2020.

The German authorities aim to create a bulwark at the Polish border to create a permanent and strong defence line. Read how here

Source of the ASF entry is unknown

Saxony state secretary Sebastian Vogel, head of the ASF crisis team, commented in a press release: “The source of the entry is not yet known, the epidemiological investigations have already started. We are currently assuming that it is not a matter of transmission by migrating wild boar from the infected areas in the Görlitz district. It is now necessary to determine the extent of the outbreak in the Meissen district, in particular whether and to what extent the infection process has progressed in order to initiate the necessary measures.”

In Brandenburg, the German state to the north also bordering Poland, so far 1,840 wild boar have been found infected with African Swine Fever. There, also 3 (smaller) farms got infected this summer.