A case of African swine fever (Psa) was taken over a Rome. This was announced by the extraordinary commissioner for the emergency, Angelo Ferrari. “Yes, there is a case – he says, contacted by telephone by Ansa – the area should be that of the Insugherata park. We are carrying out the necessary checks”.
If confirmed, it would be the first case of swine fever, a viral disease that affects pigs and wild boars, outside the area concerned up to now, i.e. the one that goes from the province of Genoa and extends towards Piedmont up to Serravalle Scrivia (Alessandria). .
The case of Rome – as far as we know – was reported and identified by the Zooprophylactic Institute of Lazio and confirmed by the Zooprophylactic Umbria and Marche national reference center on this disease. Today is convened – how to learn – the meeting of the expert group which works on the PSA, which meets periodically to analyze cases, as in Piedmont and Liguria (the areas affected so far, in the provinces of Genoa and Alessandria) and monitoring has been activated on the area to delimit the boundaries of the affected area. European notification procedures have also started.
The position of Coldiretti
“We need the responsibility of the institutions for an immediate action to contain the population of wild boars that have invaded the countryside and cities up to the capital with economic damage for breeders and risks for the safety of citizens”. This is what the president of the Coldiretti, Ettore Prandini, in reference to the case of African swine fever in Rome, very far from the confirmed outbreaks between Piedmont and Liguria. “We have repeatedly highlighted – says Prandini – the risk of the spread of African Swine Fever through wild boars and the need for their numerical reduction through hunting activities, the control actions of law 157/92 with article 19 and programmable actions. in the network of protected areas. We are in fact forced to face a serious health emergency because – Prandini specifies – there was no preventive action as we have repeatedly denounced in the streets and in institutional offices in the face of the presence in Italy of more than 2.3 million of specimens, which arrived in large numbers also in the capital “.
In the province of Rome, Coldiretti estimates, the presence of over 20,000 wild boars is calculated which, in addition to destroying crops and frightening citizens, also represent concrete economic damage due to the marketing containment measures that take place after the assessment of the infection. To worry, continues Prandini, “the immobility of the institutions after the cases identified in Piedmont and Liguria with the real risk that the emergency will spread to other neighboring regions where the national butchery is concentrated, which is a leading sector of the agri-food made in Italy thanks to the work of about one hundred thousand people in breeding, processing, transport and distribution with a turnover worth 20 billion “. Finally, Coldiretti explains, African Swine Fever can affect wild boars and pigs and is highly contagious and often lethal for these animals, “but, on the other hand, it is not transmissible to humans and no problem concerns meat. To date, the cases identified of positivity they only concern wild boars and no pig – concludes Coldiretti – has been infected in Italy by the PSA “.
Source: Ansa
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