The German Ministry of Food and Agriculture said on Wednesday that it had found a suspected case of African swine fever (ASF) in the state of Brandenburg.
The suspected case in the eastern state involved a wild boar carcass discovered just a few kilometers from Germany’s border with Poland, in the Spree-Neisse district in the southern part of Brandenburg, centered around the city of Cottbus.
A sample of the wild boar carcass was being taken for laboratory tests at the Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut, the ministry said in a statement.
Read more: German farmers sweat as pig fever reaches western Poland
Further analysis pending
“As soon as the analysis is completed, Federal [Agriculture] Minister Julia Klöckner will provide information about the results tomorrow,” the ministry said.
Earlier this year some 450 pig farms in the western province of Greater Poland Voivodeship (or Wielkopolska in Polish) were placed in lockdown after ASF was discovered at a farm in the region.
Wild boars carry the disease — a contagious virus which is usually fatal for pigs — and it often enters the farm pig population via blood carried by boar hunters.
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jsi/msh (dpa, Reuters)
Article source: https://www.dw.com/en/germany-suspected-case-of-african-swine-fever-in-brandenburg/a-54874026?maca=en-rss-en-ger-1023-xml-atom