The spread of African swine fever has already had major consequences. An area of 1,000 square kilometres has been cordoned off in Västmanland and Dalarna. The public is not allowed to move in the forest area, protective hunting must be carried out on wild boars, the forest industry is affected and domestic pigs in the infected area must be forcibly slaughtered.
But the Swedish National Veterinary Institute, SVA, received an alarm for almost two weeks about dead wild boars before swine fever could be diagnosed.
Hunter Per Granström reported a dead wild boar in Fagersta to SVA as early as August 25 and another just two days later. But since there were no more than three dead animals, no veterinarian was sent out to take the samples directly, but SVA sent a test kit by mail.
"It's normal for us to have reports like this. Last year we received 74 reports of wild boars and so far 50 this year. There are wild boars that can have died from any cause and also other animals, says Erika Chenais.
Couldn't post over the weekend
In addition to the time it took for the test kit to arrive, there was a further delay when the sample was to be mailed back.
– We can only ship Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. It must not be in a postal terminal over the weekend. So we couldn't send the sample back until Monday, September 4th. I think we and SVA have acted as quickly as we could, says Per Granström to DN.
According to Erika Chenai, the processing time was normal.
Could not the spread have increased during this time and made it more difficult to eliminate the infection?
"When we look at these carcasses, we can see that the infection has been here for one to two months. We do not believe that this has affected the spread of infection or changed the possibilities for control in any way, says Erika Chenais.