New ASF outbreak in Belgorod Oblast, Russia
A new outbreak of African swine Fever (ASF) has been revealed in the Belgorod Oblast among the wild boar population, according to a report by the Russian veterinary service Rosselhoznadzor.
The diagnosis has been confirmed during research by the All-Russian Research Institute of Veterinary Virology and Microbiology.
The outbreak has been reported in Alexeyevskoye, Belgorod Oblast which borders with Voronezh region. Russian vets say that the disease has killed nine wild boars here.
“If the virus reaches the industrial enterprise, it will require the culling of all livestock located there. That is why ASF has led to the ‘enormous losses’ not only for pork producers, but also for banks which are issuing loans to pork producers and the state which has subsidised interest rates on these loans,” explained CEO of RusAgro Maxim Basov.
“The number of pigs in the Belgorod Oblast is close to 4 million – about 25% of the total industrial production in Russia,” says the president of the National Swine Union Yuri Kovalev. “In this region there are also the largest enterprises of the country’s leading manufacturers – Miratorg, Agro-Belogoriya, RusAgro”.
“This is not the first outbreak of ASF in the Belgorod region – in July 2013, the virus was detected in one of the villages in the east of the region. And probably came from the Voronezh Oblast.” said deputy head of Rosselkhoznadzor Nikolai Vlasov. “As a result 59,000 heads of pigs were culled.”
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