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Spain's agricultural sector is facing yet another crisis, coming hot on the heels of the country's worst bird flu outbreak in recent memory. Japanese authorities announced they would seek alternatives to Spanish pork after pausing imports last Friday, following confirmation by Spanish officials of an outbreak of African swine fever in wild boar near Barcelona.

 

Japan has suspended all imports of pork and pork products, including ham and sausages, from across Spain effective from November 28 until further notice. Other countries, including China, have applied the pork embargo only to products from Barcelona province, where the outbreak was detected.

 

More than one hundred members of the Military Emergency Unit have been rapidly deployed to contain the outbreak that has affected at least two wild boar so far, although officials anticipate that the number of infections will rise. There are currently eight other suspected cases out of a total of 40 pigs tested.

 

The current outbreak represents what experts are calling "a major economic problem" for Spain, made all the more challenging by the fact that there is no vaccine available.

 

Spain is the leading pork exporter within the European Union and ranks third globally, which explains why this emergency is being treated with such seriousness. The outbreak is currently only effecting wild boar, but Yolanda Revilla, director of the African Swine Fever Virus Laboratory, stressed that if it spreads to farm pigs, the impact would be devastating, necessitating the slaughter of "thousands or hundreds of thousands of domestic pigs."

 

Part of the problem is that swine fever spreads incredibly easily and is fatal almost 100% of the time.

 

"If they smell even a little bit of faeces or any bodily fluid, it's immediate," the expert warned.

 

The virus can survive in the environment for months and can withstand temperatures up to 40ºC, making containment particularly challenging.

 

"If the outbreak in wild boar in Catalonia isn't very, very well controlled, the Iberian pig acorn season has to be suspended as soon as there's any suspicion of an infected boar in that area. If it gets out of hand, it will be a very, very, very big economic blow for the country," she added.

 

"That's why the UME (Military Emergency Unit) has been mobilised, because the virus spreads very easily."

 

African swine fever has already led to strict measures across the EU, resulting in the culling of thousands of pigs and millions of euros in losses for the sector. The disease is currently present in 13 EU countries, including Poland, Germany, Italy, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Estonia, Romania, Croatia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Greece, Latvia and Lithuania.

 

Thankfully, the disease only infects pigs and boar, so humans and other animals are completely safe. The virus has never infected a human being, despite being an endemic disease in Spain for 30 years, from the 1960s until 1994. Experts don't say there's zero risk of it jumping to humans, but they do emphasise that to date there haven't been any cases.

 

Researchers have also stressed that pork and wild boar meat are perfectly safe to eat. Ms Revilla pointed out that hunters are legally required to submit samples of their catches and that, during the 30 years the disease was endemic in Spain, "people ate ham [Iberian acorn-fed or grain-fed] that probably contained the virus," and "absolutely nothing happens at that level. There's no need to worry; people should continue buying pork, please."

 

The two positive results were detected in wild boars found in wooded areas near the University of Barcelona, in the Bellaterra area of Cerdanyola del Vallès, a region crossed by several major roads including the C-58 and AP-7 motorways.

 

Òscar Ordeig, regional Minister of Agriculture, stated that "the probability that the origin is a contaminated sausage, sandwich, or other product that arrived by road is high. It is not confirmed, but it is a hypothesis."

 

Bellaterra is an area frequented by many lorry drivers, which supports this theory. Another possibility is that someone brought contaminated products from other parts of Europe.

 

Biologists from the research centre suggest that the virus could have entered Spain through various means, from an undetected wild boar crossing the border from France to a tourist's sandwich. It could also have arrived "on the clothes or shoes" of someone who had been in an area with infected wild boar.

 

Worryingly, the experts say it’s impossible to estimate how long it will take to control the outbreak because the length of time the virus has been circulating remains unknown. Ms Revilla warns that "the longer it has been circulating, the greater the spread of the virus will be, and therefore, the more difficult it will be to control."

 

"We can't even say whether, hopefully, it will be an isolated incident, which we hope will be controlled and contained, or whether it has already spread and these wild boars are running rampant across the Iberian Peninsula and are just the tip of the iceberg, and that would be truly worrying."

 

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