Moldovan authorities to implement action plan to cease spread of swine fever

Chisinau, 19 September /MOLDPRES/ - The authorities will implement an action plan to cease the spread of the African swine fever. The subject was analyzed at a meeting of the Commission for Emergency Situations, summoned by Prime Minister Pavel Filip today.  

In the beginning of the meeting, Pavel Filip said that 22 hotbeds of swine fever had been registered in Moldova so far, of which 15 were active. According to the PM, all the state institutions need to get involved and identify solutions, as “the situation becomes alarming.”  

Director General of the National Food Safety Agency (ANSA) Gheorghe Gaberi, after the meeting of the Commission, said that the participants in the event had proposed that all pigs from the settlements where three or more hotbeds of swine fever were detected should be destroyed and the state would consider possibility to provide compensations to the households which will be hit. About 1.5 million lei will be necessary for this.  

„Additional sources will be needed for compensations. Yet, we have calculated the expenses for the maintenance and observance of the bio-security norms in the cases from Stefan Voda, such as the setting of filters, buying disinfectants. They are practically equal to the sums necessary for the compensation of losses, which will have to be paid, if the animals are slaughtered,” Gaberi said.      

While so far, the hotbeds have been caused by the import of pork products bearing the virus to Moldova, at present, decision-makers discovered that wild boars and fodder can be bearers of this disease. Thus, Gaberi noted that 63 pigs from an illicit farm, which would contracted the virus after being fed with lucerne mowed in the Dniester meadow, had been destroyed in the Tudora village, Stefan Voda district, last week. According to Gaberi, the European Union officially found out that the main source of spread of this disease in all Europe represents wild boars and fodder. For this reason, the risk of the spread of the disease is on the rise.      

In the context, one of those over 23 actions included in the plan approved by the Commission for Emergency Situations today refers to the need to cut the number of wild boars.  

So far, 252 pigs have been destroyed in the wake of catching the virus. On the last ten days alone, 17 hotbeds of swine fever were discovered in villages of the Stefan Voda and Cahul districts. In 2017, seven hotbeds were detected in Moldova.   

The African swine fever is a contagious disease which hits domestic and wild species of pigs. The virus is dangerous only for animals and does not threaten people’s health.   

(Reporter N. Sandu, editor L. Alcaza)