Authorities Start Hunting And Burning Wild Boar in Sweden After Swine Fever Outbreak

WORK has begun in Sweden to localise and limit the effect that the confirmed cases of swine fever could have in the country.

Karl Ståhl, the state epizootologist explained that wild boar will be rounded up and burned in an effort to prevent the spread of the plague.

‘We will take samples of all wild boars, take care of them and burn them. There are probably a lot of cases in the forest. I don’t know any country that hasn’t received hundreds of cases, then it depends on how many wild boar there are in the area’, he detailed.

There are currently no new cases of swine fever reported but Ståhl stressed that one should not stare blindly at the number of cases.

He pointed out that in the work to control the plague it was more important to focus on the geographical spread than the number of cases. Once you start looking, you will find more cases he informed aftonbladet.se.

During the day, the State Veterinary Institute, SVA, will begin work in the area around the municipality of Fagersta in Västmanland County. ‘We will start a surveillance, concretely it is about looking for wild boar’, Ståhl continued.

With the help of hunters, they must systematically look for dead wild boars, to get a picture of how large the spread is. The search will start from the find location and move outward until no more positive cases are found.

‘The first stage will take a few weeks, but it may continue for months. In the work to localise the infection, samples will be taken of all the pigs found in the area, then they will be burned’, the epizootologist explained further.

A mobile incineration plant from the Swedish Agricultural Agency will be driven to the area Ståhl added. It will facilitate the burning of the pigs that died from the infection and presumably also contained the virus.