African swine fever in the Caucasus

Abstract

African swine fever (ASF) is a highly contagious virus infection of domestic pigs with a serious socioeconomic impact on people’s livelihoods, participation in international commercial trade, and protein-food security. Since June 2007, multiple ASF outbreaks have been reported in all the countries of the Caucasus region: Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. The Russian Federation also reported ASF-positive wild boar in the Republic of Chechnya, bordering Georgia. Feral pigs (escaped domestic species ) or European wild boar (non-domesticated species) are equally susceptible to ASF, which would make it very difficult to control the disease if the infection became endemic in these populations. If not contained, ASF could easily spread to other countries in the region particularly to the north and east (Russian Federation and Ukraine).