A Polish farm with more than 8,000 pigs, located in Bielsk Podlaskie near the border with Belarus, has confirmed an outbreak of African swine fever.
The information was provided to the World Organisation for Animal Health by Pawel Niemczuk, Poland’s chief veterinary officer.
While ASF has been spreading across the country through wild boars, this outbreak is only the third this year in domestic pig populations and by far the largest. Since October 2018, there have been more than 1,400 cases of ASF reported in wild boar populations.
On October 26, 2018, the USDA Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service agreed to lift restrictions on imports of some fresh and frozen pork from Poland that were put in place earlier that month, due to potential risk from ASF.
After an expeditious review of export protocols, APHIS notified Poland that it will lift restrictions on all establishments located in the contiguous free zones.