African swine fever confirmed in Tulcea County

The Institute of Diagnosis and Animal Health (IDSA) confirmed on Monday the presence of African swine fever in four private households in the villages of Ceatalchioi and Sălceni, Ceatalchioi commune in the Danube Delta, Tulcea County.

Confirmation was made by the Director of the Sanitary Veterinary and Food Safety Authority (DSVSA), Mitica Tuchilă.

The suspicion of African swine fever in the two communities occurred on Friday after some of the pigs in the respective households died and the results of the laboratory tests carried out in Tulcea confirmed the presence of the virus Saturday afternoon, realitatea.net reports.

For a second confirmation, DSVSA has submitted samples to IDSA on Sunday.

“IDSA Bucharest confirmed the presence of African swine fever in Sălceni and Ceatalchioi villages,” Tuchilă said.

According to the contingency plan of Romania for African swine fever, veterinarians will have to slaughter all the pigs on the neighbouring holdings of the two localities, if any, and will monitor swine populations in communities within a distance of up to 10 kilometres distance away from the two outbreaks.

The measures in the plan also prohibit the movement of animals in the area.

African swine fever is, according to DSVSA, a disease of domestic and wild boar that cannot be prevented by vaccinations and which causes serious socio-economic damages.

Hunting in the Delta has been forbidden for many years.

The outbreak identified in the past days in the two villages of Ceatalchioi commune is the first of its kind in Tulcea County.

African swine fever was confirmed last year in Romania for the first time in a private household on the outskirts of Satu-Mare.

African swine fever virus was recently detected in a sample taken from a wild boar found dead on the Noroieni forest hunting ground in Satu-Mare County, about 6 kilometres from the Hungarian border and 10 kilometres from the Ukrainian border, the National Sanitary Veterinary and Food Safety Authority (ANSVSA) informed on May 31.

The possible way of contamination of the dead wild boar was by contact with other flocks of boars infected with the African swine fever viruses in Hungary or Ukraine, countries where the disease was diagnosed in the forest.