China News Service, May 31. According to the Hong Kong Commercial Daily, the Hong Kong Fisheries and Conservation Department announced on the evening of the 30th that after testing a sample collected from a wild boar carcass under the local wild boar African swine fever monitoring program, it found that the Pestivirus was positive.
The Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department said that after receiving reports of the sighting of wild boars from the public a few days ago, it dispatched staff to the area around Tai Lan Lake in Sai Kung to follow up and found a weak wild boar.
The wild boar subsequently died.
AFCD staff took samples from the wild boar carcass for testing and found that the samples were positive for African swine fever virus.
The AFCD will report the relevant test results to the World Organization for Animal Health, and will continue to monitor the death of wild boars that require attention and conduct wild boar surveillance.
According to reports, there is a pig farm within three kilometers of Tai Lan Lake in Sai Kung. The Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department will send staff to inspect the pig farm and follow up if necessary.
At present, no local pig farms have been found to be affected by the incident, and the AFCD has immediately notified all local pig farm managers of the case, and reminded them to strengthen biosecurity measures to prevent wild boars from entering the pig farms and spreading the African swine fever virus .
If the person in charge of the pig farm finds that the pigs have health problems, they must report to the AFCD.
AFCD has been closely monitoring the health of pigs in local pig farms and will collect samples for testing if necessary.
An AFCD spokesman stressed that if people encounter wild boars, they should keep a distance from them as much as possible to ensure personal safety and avoid wild boars coming into contact with food contaminated with African swine fever virus.
In addition, members of the public should not feed any wild animals, including wild boars, and put rubbish in covered trash cans.
If the public finds the carcass of wild boar, they can call 1823 to report.
According to the report, in order to strengthen the monitoring of African swine fever on local wild boars in Hong Kong, the AFCD has cooperated with the FEHD to implement the African Swine Fever monitoring programme for local wild boars since the end of 2019, including the African swine fever monitoring program for wild boar carcasses reported by the FEHD. Swine fever virus detection.
The plan covers the New Territories and Kowloon, as well as any other areas where multiple wild boar deaths have occurred.
For early detection of potential cases, the plan also collects samples from humanely treated wild boars for ASFV testing.