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African Swine Fever
Why is it in News?
- African Swine Fever (ASF) has been reported in India for the first time.
Details:
- The porcine industry in Assam suffered major losses due to killing of more than 17,000 pigs in Assam and over 4,500 in Arunachal Pradesh by ASF.
- In September 2019, ASF led to large scale culling of pig populations in China, largest exporter and consumer of pork, due to lack of vaccine.
- ASF:
(1) It is severe viral disease that affects wild and domestic pigs.
(2) It results into an acute haemorrhagic fever.
(3) It doesn’t affect humans.
(4) The disease has a case fatality rate (CFR) of almost 100 per cent.
(5) Its routes of transmission include –
(a) direct contact with an infected or wild pig (alive or dead),
(b) indirect contact through ingestion of contaminated material such as food waste, feed or garbage, or through biological vectors such as ticks.
(6) Symptoms include high fever, depression, anorexia, loss of appetite, haemorrhages in the skin, vomiting and diarrhoea.
(7) It is different from Classical Swine Fever (CSF), whose signs may be similar to ASF, but is caused by a different virus for which a vaccine exists.
- The current outbreak of ASF has affected China, Mongolia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Republic of Korea and Indonesia.
- In China, the first ASF outbreak was confirmed in August 2018.
- The outbreak has affected pork consumers and also small farmers, who do not have the resources to protect their pigs from the disease.