New EU member Bulgaria sees more CSF

Analysis by Bulgarian veterinary health authorities confirmed that the disease killed four animals at a farm in the town of Smyadovo earlier this week. Ten more pigs were claimed to be infected.


All pigs at the farm have now to be culled in order to prevent the disease from spreading.


Prevalence
The prevalence of the disease in Bulgaria and neighbouring Romania is a hot topic, as both countries have entered the European Union in January of this year.


Despite the accession, both countries were banned from exporting live pigs, pork and other pig products to other EU countries, due to CSF. Russia even threatened to close its borders for all European pork, fearing infected pork from these two countries would spread freely across the EU.


Altogether Bulgaria saw three CSF outbreaks last year, causing the health authorities to kill more than 200 animals.


Even worse
Neighbouring Romania suffered from even worse outbreaks. In January 2006, about 660 outbreaks of CSF were detected in 345 locations around Romania despite a large-scale campaign to vaccinate four million breeding pigs and 3.8 million wild boars.


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