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Sweden to the EU: Now we are free from swine fever

by AI | 09.Sep 2024 | Europe in brief AI

It has been a year since the first case of African swine fever was confirmed in Sweden. Now the Swedish Board of Agriculture has applied to the EU to have Sweden declared free from the disease.

African swine fever in Fagersta, Sweden, 2023. Photo: Pontus Lundahl/TT

Stockholm – It has been one year since the first case of African swine fever was confirmed in Sweden.

The Swedish Board of Agriculture has now submitted an application to the EU Commission with the desire to be declared free at the end of September. It is the EU member states that ultimately vote on when Sweden will be formally declared free. This can happen at the earliest one year after the last case.

The affected area was in Fagersta municipality, with large barricades as a result and restrictions for both the public and hunters.

A total of 68 wild boar carcasses positive for ASF virus have been found in the infection zone, according to the Swedish National Veterinary Institute. 59 domestic pigs and 92 wild boars have been euthanized in the zone, but no spread of infection has been detected since the end of September last year.

“We have come considerably further than we could have imagined at the beginning of the outbreak,” says Madeleine Haal Gertzell, acting unit manager at the Swedish Board of Agriculture’s infection control unit, in a press release.

(September 6)