CSF found in Piauí state as Brazil starts eradication

The outbreak was confirmed on Friday, 5 April, on a small, non-commercial family farm with 13 animals near Lagoa do Piaui city, in Piauí state. In total 7 piglets had died and the others were sacrificed for sanitary reasons.

Confirmation by Brazil’s ministry of agriculture

The outbreak was confirmed by Brazil’s Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply (Mapa). That happened during a routine procedure after the death of the 7 animals. The other animals showed signs of weakness, high fever and paralysis in upper limbs.

Mapa staff reported that 1 animal was killed for necropsy and sampling. The Federal Agricultural Defense Laboratory in Minas Gerais identified CSF antibodies using an ELISA test and the virus was also confirmed in a real-time PCR test. Mapa officials commenced an investigation inside each pig-related property in a 50 km radius.

Brazil’s CSF Free Zone

On 29 March, Mapa announced a programme for complete CSF eradication in the whole of Brazil.

Currently, Brazil has a CSF Free Zone, comprising of 17 states recognised by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) as free from CSF. These include 95% of Brazil’s swine production, involving the country’s South, Central West and South East. Just one of them, Santa Catarina, is recognised as being free from CSF without vaccination. Within the CSF Free Zone, there have not been any outbreaks since January 1998.

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The control between the CSF Free Zone and the other areas of Brazil includes inspection barriers to avoid transit of animals and other potentially dangerous materials.

According to Decree 40 of Official Diary of The Union (DOU), by July 2019 the Brazilian government will detail a programme as to how to achieve the same status for the states in the North and North East. Apart from Piauí, that includes the states Alagoas, Amapá, Amazonas, Maranhão, Para, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Piauí, Rio Grande do Norte, Roraima and Ceará.

CSF in Ceará state in 2018

In this context, the last state deserves some additional attention, as Ceará faced a series of Classical Swine Fever outbreaks only last year. The state, neighbouring to Piauí, reported in total 30 outbreaks to the OIE between August and November 2018 last year, that included the death of in total 1,429 pigs.

What happened in Ceará exactly again with regard to CSF?

Calling the Piauí case a ‘small outbreak’, Paulo Calisto, president of the Piauí Swine Producers Asociation (Apisui), said, “We are in extreme situations in the North of the Brazil. The point is that the government has started to inspect remote areas outside Brazilian Free Zone more intensively since some time ago. That is why Piauí and Ceará registered cases recently. It will provide information to eradicate CSF in our region as well.”