Project background

ASF has resurged in domestic pigs in South Africa since 2019 and is continuing to spread. Three of 125 compartment units have been affected by ASF since 2020. Since ASF compartments are held to specific standards for biosecurity in the interest of business continuity in the face of national ASF outbreaks, identifying the gaps in biosecurity measures that have allowed for and may lead to the introduction of ASF into compartments is of critical importance to the swine industry of South Africa.

Our Work

To achieve the project objectives, online surveys were developed and distributed among the farm managers and the consulting veterinarians of the farms within the compartments.

Results

A number of gaps were identified, i.e., lack of biosecurity monitoring programme in many compartment units and/or ASF contingency plan in most compartment units. Some compartment units have not carried out active testing for ASF, even though this is a requirement of the compartment standards.

Although farm managers tended to rate risk factors higher than the veterinarians, they mostly agree on the top priority risk factors. The following risk factors were consistently rated as “high” or “medium” risk among farm managers and veterinarians for all units:

• Farms with poor biosecurity located in proximity to the compartment
• Insufficient control of scavenger animals in proximity to the compartment unit premises
• High on-farm domestic pig density

Results of this study are published in Porcine Health Management volume 8, Article number: 43 (2022):

https://doi.org/10.1186/s40813-022-00286-7