HAMBURG (Reuters) – Another case of African swine fever (ASF) has been confirmed in farm pigs in east Germany, Germany’s federal agriculture ministry said on Monday.
ASF was found in three farms in eastern Germany in July following an extensive outbreak in wild animals, with over 2,000 cases in wild boar in the eastern states of Brandenburg and Saxony.
The new case was found on a farm near Rostock in the eastern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, next to Brandenburg, where no ASF cases had been previously found in farm animals or wild boar, the ministry said.
China and a series of other pork buyers banned imports of German pigmeat in September 2020 after the first case was confirmed in wild animals. Discoveries on farms will make it harder for Germany to get the export bans lifted, analysts say.
The disease is not dangerous to humans but it is fatal to pigs. Many countries impose bans on pork from regions suffering from the disease, distorting world food trade.
(Reporting by Michael Hogan)
