ASF may cause pork shortage in Russia

A major epidemic of African Swine Fever, which has already spread across the Southern Federal District, continues to threaten the European part of Russia and in particular its largest cities, including Moscow. The damage from the epidemic today stands at millions of euros for each affected region.

According to Russian media reports, regional authorities have already destroyed more than 22,000 pigs mainly in the southern part of Russia while new outbreaks could lead to a shortage of pork and pigs throughout the whole country.

Analysts believe, if the infection becomes more widespread and moves into the Central and Volga federal districts, it may destroy up to 41.4% of the Russian pig population.

Billions of roubles in damage
To date, the material damage from the spread of the dangerous virus has already exceeded billions of roubles, not counting farmers’ losses.

“At the moment the authorities of the Stavropol region (South Russia) have already destroyed 30,000 pigs due to the African Swine Fever. The direct losses amounted to approximately 300 million roubles (€7 million), while the indirect damage is 5-6 billion roubles (€120,000).”

North Ossetia has lost all of its pig population – about 200,000 head, and its direct losses amounted to 200 million roubles. In general, only the direct damage in Russia from the epidemic amounted to 1 billion roubles (€20 million), said deputy head of the Russian Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance, Nikolai Vlasov. (Evegen Vorotnikov)