African swine fever: A permanent threat to Indian pigs

Vet World Vol.13 October-2020 Article-33

Review Article

Veterinary World, 13(10): 2275-2285

https://doi.org/10.14202/vetworld.2020.2275-2285

Sharanagouda S. Patil¹, Kuralayanapalya Puttahonnappa Suresh¹, Vikram Vashist², Awadhesh Prajapati¹, Bramhadev Pattnaik³, and Parimal Roy¹

1. Indian Council of Agricultural Research-National Institute of Veterinary Epidemiology and Disease Informatics, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.
2. Department of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Services, Shimla, Himachal Pradesh, India.
3. One Health Center for Surveillance and Disease Dynamics, AIPH University, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India.

Background and Aim: India has 9 million pigs, of which 45% are in the North eastern (NE) states of India. Viral diseases affecting pigs are a major concern of mortality causing huge loss to the pig farmers. One such disease is African swine fever (ASF) that has already knocked the porous borders of NE states of India. ASF is a highly contagious devastating disease of pigs and wild boars causing 100% mortality. The causative agent African swine fever virus (ASFV) belongs to the genus Asfivirus, family Asfarviridae. Pig is the only species affected by this virus. Soft ticks (Ornithodoros genus) are shown to be reservoir and transmission vectors of ASFV. Transmission is very rapid and quickly engulfs the entire pig population. It is very difficult to differentiate classical swine fever from ASF since clinical symptoms overlap. Infected and in contact pigs should be culled immediately and buried deep, and sheds and premises be disinfected to control the disease. There is no vaccine available commercially. Since its first report in Kenya in 1921, the disease has been reported from the countries in Europe, Russian federation, China, and Myanmar. The disease is a threat to Indian pigs. OIE published the first report of ASF in India on May 21, 2020, wherein, a total of 3701 pigs died from 11 outbreaks (Morbidity - 38.45% and mortality - 33.89%) in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh states of India. ASF is non-zoonotic.

Keywords: African swine fever, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, first outbreak, India, North eastern states, pigs, social and economic factors.

How to cite this article: Patil SS, Suresh KP, Vashist V, Prajapati A, Pattnaik B, Roy P (2020) African swine fever: A permanent threat to Indian pigs, Veterinary World, 13(10): 2275-2285.

Received: 01-06-2020 Accepted: 28-09-2020 Published online: 29-10-2020

Corresponding author: Sharanagouda S. Patil E-mail: ss.patil@icar.gov.in

DOI: 10.14202/vetworld.2020.2275-2285

Copyright: Patil, et al. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http:// creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.