The Ministry of Agrarian Policy said that Ukraine had overcome the swine fever / Photo from UNIAN
Ukraine has overcome the epidemic of an extremely dangerous viral animal diseases - African Swine Fever (ASF) – which hit Ukraine with 40 outbreaks in 2015 leading to the forced extermination of infected animals and those potentially exposed to infection, said Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food Oleksiy Pavlenko at the ministerial roundtable on Wednesday.
"Last year we broke the African swine I want to thank the Service [the State Veterinary and Phytosanitary Service] because we have gone through some very difficult times. Now I looked through the latest report: more than a half of the outbreaks was dealt with," the minister said.
Pavlenko also noted that Ukraine is ahead of the neighboring countries - Russia, Belarus and Poland – in fighting the epidemic.
Read alsoRussia bans Ukrainian pork from Jan 1As UNIAN reported earlier, the chiefs of Ukraine’s Ministry of Agrarian Policy had stated previously that the fight against the spread of African Swine Fever in Ukraine will be delayed at least until 2017.
The State Veterinary and Phytosanitary Service reported on 36 of 41 locations hit by ASF in 2015-2016 freed from the virus.
According to the agency, in 2015 alone, 40 cases of ASF were recorded in nine regions of Ukraine, including Chernihiv - 13 outbreaks, Kyiv and Sumy - 6, Poltava - 5, Mykolaiv - 4, Rivne and Odesa - 2, Zhytomyr and Cherkasy – 1 case. Five outbreaks were recorded in the wild.
In 2016, there was only one case of ASF recorded in Poltava region.
Read alsoRFE/RL: Dozens killed by deadly swine flu virus in UkraineAccording to the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), an intense epizootic situation with ASF has been observed globally. Last year, the spread of the disease was recorded in 12 countries: Latvia (577 cases), Lithuania (93), Estonia (393), Poland (31) Russia (84), Chad (1), Cape Verde (2) Cote d'Ivoire (2), Kenya (1), Nigeria (1), Zimbabwe (8), and Ukraine (40).
UNIAN memo. African swine fever (Montgomery disease) is a contagious viral disease of domestic and wild pigs. The disease is no threat to humans. The virus is transmitted by direct contact between sick and healthy animals, through pork products, and also transmitted by ticks and transmitted mechanically (by vehicles during transfer of people and animals). There is no vaccines against the cvirus. Almost all of the population of infected pigs dies. The virus is destroyed by heating to extremely high temperatures.