REUTERS
Twelve villages in six regions of Ukraine have been put in quarantine due to African swine fever (ASF) outbreaks, according to the State Food Safety and Consumer Protection Service's press office.
In particular, the ASF outbreaks were recorded in Poltava and Zakarpattia regions (three in each), Kyiv and Cherkasy regions (two in each), as well as Kharkiv and Chernihiv regions (one in each).
The 40-day quarantine is announced in the areas of the outbreak where restrictive measures are being taken, namely the blocking of pigs and produce transportation, the seizure of cattle, and disinfection. If veterinary experts do not record a new outbreak in these areas, such settlements are considered to be free of the virus.
Some 221 out of 233 affected villages and towns have been sanitized in the past five years. At the same time, there has been no recurrence of the virus in those areas, the report said.
Read alsoBelarus bans pork from Ukraine's Vinnytsia regionIn general, 85 cases of ASF outbreaks have been reported in Ukraine since the beginning of 2017 (75 cases with domestic animals and 10 with wild ones) against 91 cases in 2016. For the first time since the beginning of 2017, the virus was recorded in Ternopil, Donetsk, Kherson, Dnipropetrovsk, and Ivano-Frankivsk regions.
In total, 233 ASF outbreaks have been registered in 23 Ukrainian regions since 2012.
As UNIAN reported earlier, head of the State Food Safety and Consumer Protection Service Volodymyr Lapa said that pig breeding losses due to the virus spread had amounted to about UAH 200 million since the first ASF outbreak was reported in Ukraine. If the current trend of the ASF spread continues, Ukraine will lose over 1.2 million pigs, or UAH 4 billion, by 2020, while indirect losses will increase by an amount estimated between UAH 5 billion and UAH 7.5 billion.