Uganda: Residents ignore warnings concerning consumption of pork from pigs killed by ASF

Arrests
It has been reported that officials have arrested two people from Patua Village, as they have been involved in preparing pig carcasses for consumption. There are two more suspects are currently at large, who were also involved with the arrested.

 

Mr Fredrick Segirinya, the District Police Commander, stated that the suspects would be charged with malicious spread of disease. “We shall continue arresting those who will disobey the quarantine because we want to bring the rapid spread of the disease under control,” he said.

 

The District Veterinary Officer, Dr Williams Guma, stated that most pig farmers are trying to stay above water and not make any losses, due to this they smoke the pig carcasses for cheap sale instead of burying it. This is very dangerous.”

 

Despite pigs being quarantined, African Swine Fever in the district has so far killed 120 pigs in the course of a two week period.  Because some farmers are getting rid of carcasses without any concealment, another farmer believes that some farmers may be spreading ASF on purpose.

 

African Swine Fever  in Russia
As Russia struggles to get a grip on ASF, the disease has made more headlines in recent months and weeks with a state of emergency being declared in August. The outbreaks in the country continue and despite prevention measures being carried out, the spread of the disease in Russia is a major issue as the country continues to battle against the disease.

 

Global threat
In May this year, FAO called on affected countries to step up precautionary measures against ASF. “African Swine Fever is fast becoming a global issue,” said Juan Lubroth, FAO’s Chief Veterinary Officer. “It now poses an immediate threat to Europe and beyond. Countries need to be on the alert and to strengthen their preparedness and contingency plans.”

 

Measures recommended for countries by FAO include risk analyses to evaluate the situation and assess potential consequences. Such analyses should pave the way for fully-fledged contingency plans and provide the rationale for selecting disease-control strategies.

 

Importantly, there is currently no vaccine for the disease, which is very often lethal to pigs but is not harmful to humans. Read more on this here.

Also, recently Ukraine and the European Commission have agreed on joint measures to prevent the spread of African Swine Fever in the territory of Ukraine and the European Union.

“We, together with the European Commission, began work on the establishment of control measures to prevent and halt the spread of the virus on Ukrainian territory, and, of course, European,” said Minister of Agricultural Policy and Food of Ukraine, Nykolai Prysiazhniuk. Read more here.