Italian farmers alerted Mario Draghi’s government on Wednesday to the worrying spread of swine fever in the peninsula. Cases have been detected in Piedmont (north-west) and in the Rome region.
In a letter to Mario Draghi, the country’s main agricultural association, Coldiretti, demands “new rapid interventions for the slaughter and the fight against the proliferation of wild boars throughout the country to stop the spread of African swine fever”.
According to her, this highly contagious virus “endangers the 29,000 Italian farms and a strategic economic sector generating an annual turnover of 20 billion euros and employing a hundred thousand people”.
Emergency plan
This announcement comes the day after the announcement of an emergency plan to stem the virus in Lazio, the region of Rome, where eight cases have been detected this year, including three on Tuesday. A red zone with a perimeter of 65 km in the north of the capital has been defined and will be surrounded by a 1.5 km high fence.
“A slaughter plan will be launched within a month,” said Secretary of State for Health Andrea Costa. The first cases of swine fever in Italy were detected in January in Piedmont (north-west). The neighboring region of Liguria is also affected.
Tainted Image
Coldiretti calls in particular for “radical action to reduce the wild boar population, the proliferation of which has now become unmanageable”, an essential action according to her “to defend the image of Rome and Italy throughout the world”.
The media and social networks have widely echoed in recent months images showing families of wild boars walking through residential areas of the capital and feeding in garbage cans.
The disease only affects pigs, wild boars and warthogs. The virus, which cannot be transmitted to people, can survive for more than two months in meat and cold cuts from affected animals. It is transmitted from one animal to another through the consumption of infected food – for example if domestic pigs are fed with leftovers – or through contact with any contaminated medium.
ats, afp