The Dominican Republic has confirmed the presence of African swine fever in eleven provinces

The Dominican Republic’s official Commission for the Control and Eradication of African Swine Fever Outbreaks reported on Monday that the disease has been detected in eleven provinces of the country.

The phytosanitary authorities have indicated that the disease affecting pigs has so far spread in the provinces of Sánchez Ramírez, Santiago, Hermanas Mirabal, La Vega, Montecristi, Elías Piña, San Juan and the national district., according to a statement from the country’s agriculture ministry.

Faced with this situation, the virus isolation protocol was activated in these areas, with the support of international organizations such as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) or the Inter-American Institute. Cooperation for Agriculture (IICA), among others. others.

Working groups made up of a veterinarian, experts from the country’s Agricultural Bank, assistants or security personnel are located on different farms to carry out disease control and eradication.

Thus, the teams proceeded to the slaughter of the pigs, “the only sanitary measure to stop the disease according to the established protocol”.

In this direction, The Ministry of Agriculture stressed that it applied “all the recommendations of international organizations to contain the progression of the disease” and applied the regulations that “the current health situation dictates”.

“Thanks to Banco Agrícola, we guarantee payment according to the current market price for pigs that are slaughtered in the demarcations so that producers are not economically affected,” explained the portfolio.

He also indicated that Banco Agrícola experts carry out the expertise of the specimens and fill out the forms, so that pig farmers “can withdraw the funds for compensation within twelve to fifteen days”.

On the other hand, he stressed that emergency and vehicle disinfection works are being carried out in all the affected provinces and in a “preventive” manner in neighboring towns.

For its part, the FAO has alerted the countries of the region to take preventive measures in view of the recent detection of cases in the Dominican Republic, although it recalled that “it does not represent a risk for the human health “, but” causes one hundred percent mortality in pigs “,” resulting in serious economic losses “.

The first case detected in the Dominican Republic was notified to the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) on July 29. This is the first confirmed case in the Western Hemisphere since the 1980s.

(With information from Europa Press)

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