November 24, 2020

Belgium now second EU nation to be ASF-free

Belgium is officially free of African swine fever, the second EU nation after the Czech Republic to have successfully eradicate the disease from its territory.

The declaration was made this month in the framework of the EC Standing Committee on Animal Health and came after more than 12 months of no reported ASF outbreaks in recent wild boar carcasses.

Belgium was one of the countries where outbreaks were exclusively reported in wild boar, with no cases detected in domestic pigs during the whole period of the active outbreak in wild boar.

The Belgian authorities have announced that, in order to ensure a safer and more progressive normalisation process, they will maintain certain measures in the affected area until the end of March 2022, such as reinforced surveillance with mandatory testing of all dead and hunted wild boar, maintenance of fences (about 300 km) as well as the search for wild boar carcasses.

Starting in April 2021, surveillance measures will be maintained in the affected area and an observation zone will be defined around it where reinforced surveillance will be maintained.

In the affected area, it is estimated that there are currently between 100 and 150 wild boar left, with an estimated density of about 0.2 wild boar/km2.

- MAPA (Spain)