site.btaTwo Executive Agencies Take Urgent Measures to Contain African Swine Fever Infection

120 ANIMAL HEALTH - AFRICAN SWINE FEVER - MEASURES

Two Executive Agencies Take
Urgent Measures to Contain
African Swine Fever Infection


Sofia, July 10 (BTA) - Bulgarian Agriculture, Food and Forestry Minister Desislava Taneva has ordered the Executive Forest Agency and the Bulgarian Food Safety Agency (BFSA) to take urgent surveillance and containment measures for African swine fever (ASF) in the territory of the country, Taneva's Ministry said in a press release on Wednesday.

A 2 km zone around the detected ASF outbreaks will be under constant observation, and the 20 km zone around these outbreaks will be monitored every other day. Surveillance patrols will cover all other hunting management areas in North Bulgaria and the hunting management areas bordering on Serbia and Turkey once a week, and the rest of the hunting management areas in the country will be patrolled once every two weeks.

The purpose of the constant observation of the hunting management areas is to establish whether there are any dead wild boars or wild boars exhibiting untypical behaviour.

The wild boar population density in the 20 km zone around the ASF outbreaks must be reduced to less than 0.3 individuals per 100 hectares. For the rest of the hunting management areas, the population will be culled to a lesser extent until it reaches 0.5 individuals per 100 hectares.

Forestry enterprises will pay 50 leva for each wild boar killed during a selective hunt or a wild boar found dead, provided that the mandatory samples are send for laboratory tests. Rewards will also be paid for killed foxes and jackals, which are also considered carriers of the infection: 10 leva per fox and 100 leva per jackal.

The Minister has ordered the testing of the killed wild boars for ASF to be paid for by the BFSA. LI/LG
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