African swine fever (ASF) first occurred in a domestic pig population in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

As the Federal Ministry of Agriculture announced in Berlin, the Friedrich Loeffler Institute (FLI) detected the animal disease in samples on Monday.

Previously, there had been an increased number of fattening pigs in the farm in the Rostock region. 

In the fattening farm, all 4038 animals will be killed and disposed of over the next few days.

The action is expected to begin on Wednesday and should be completed by the weekend, said State Agriculture Minister Till Backhaus (SPD) on Tuesday in Schwerin.

A restricted zone and an observation zone with a radius of three and ten kilometers respectively have been set up around the family business concerned.

Pigs could only be brought out of this if they tested negative.

The search for the cause of the outbreak in the middle of the state has started, as Backhaus said.

There are still no hints for solving this riddle.

The plague has been affecting wild boars since 2020

According to the minister, the family business concerned consists of a total of four companies. This also included a sow facility with 1,000 dams and the associated piglets in the Vorpommern-Rügen district and two other fattening farms in the Mecklenburg Lake District. It is a closed production system. The stocks in the other holdings would be strictly controlled. So far there is no evidence of ASP there.

The Tierschutzbund accused the politicians of a lack of commitment in researching a vaccine.

Association president Thomas Schröder told the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung: "If politicians had taken this epidemic as seriously as Corona and had invested enough money in vaccine research, then we would have made further progress." Schröder accused politicians of lack of interest in the topic, "because yes all about animals ”.

So far there had been no cases of ASF in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania - neither in wild boars nor in domestic pigs.

Cases of swine fever had occurred in wild and domestic pigs in Brandenburg and in wild pigs in Saxony since September 2020.

The disease is almost always fatal in pigs, but it is harmless to humans.

It can be transmitted through direct contact between animals or indirectly through contaminated objects such as shoes or discarded food.