The African swine fever threat to Australia
Michael P. Ward A *A Sydney School of Veterinary Science, The University of Sydney, Camden, NSW 2570, Australia.
Michael Ward is Chair, Veterinary Public Health and Food Safety in the Sydney School of Veterinary Science. He is a veterinary epidemiologist with experience in analytical epidemiological methods, spatial epidemiology and simulation modelling. He has more than 35 years’ experience in conducting research on infectious diseases. Michael is a veterinary graduate of the University of Queensland and has held positions within the Queensland Department of Primary Industries and the veterinary schools at Purdue University (Indiana) and Texas A&M University. He returned to Australia from Texas in 2008 to take up his current position at The University of Sydney. In 2010, Michael organised and hosted the GEOVET conference. He has acted as Associate Editor for the journals Preventive Veterinary Medicine and Zoonoses and Public Health. Michael is currently the Editor-in-Chief, Transboundary and Emerging Diseases. He currently leads the Local Organising Committee for the 17th International Symposium on Veterinary Epidemiology and Economics, planned for Sydney in 2024. |
Microbiology Australia 43(4) 183-185 https://doi.org/10.1071/MA22060
Submitted: 10 October 2022 Accepted: 18 November 2022 Published: 7 December 2022
© 2022 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of the ASM. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)
Abstract
African swine fever (ASF) is not a new disease: its impact on domestic pig production in Africa was first documented 100 years ago. For most of the twentieth century ASF was considered a disease of Africa, with occasional incursions into Europe and the western hemisphere. However, during the past two decades, ASF has emerged as a truly global diseases, invading parts of Europe and spreading throughout Asia. By 2020, ASF had spread as far as Papua New Guinea. Why ASF has spread such distances so quickly is not well understood, however the movement of both live pigs and pork products undoubtedly is a major contributing factor. The role that wild pigs play in the spread and maintenance of ASF virus is a topic of ongoing debate. Adding to the complexity of the epidemiology of this disease, ASF virus can be transmitted by some tick species in particular ecosystems. Australia is vulnerable to an ASF virus incursion. The threat is further heightened by the uncertainty regarding whether our large and widely distributed feral pig population would become endemically infected, creating a barrier to eradication of the disease. Preventing an incursion of ASF virus relies on ongoing risk assessments based on where the virus currently exists, and the disease pathways for introduction. Within the Australian context, regulatory enforcement and surveillance of illegally important pork products is paramount to minimise the treat that ASF poses.
Keywords: African swine fever virus, biosecurity, epidemiology, pig, risk assessment, suid, surveillance, transboundary spread.
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