On Thursday 11 July 2024, Luxembourg's Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Viticulture confirmed that Luxembourg remains free from African swine fever at present.
Nevertheless, following the detection of several cases of African swine fever in wild boars and pigs in Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany, the Luxembourg Veterinary and Food Administration (ALVA) has called for certain precautionary measures to be respected.
African swine fever is a viral disease that exclusively affects pigs and wild boars. The disease is transmitted between animals, either directly following contact with a sick animal or indirectly via contact with contaminated equipment or via ingestion of contaminated pork or wild boar meat.
In order to avoid the introduction of the virus into the wild boar population and pig herds in Luxembourg, the following preventive measures are deemed necessary:
- to prevent potentially contaminated meat from being ingested by a pig or wild boar, ALVA is calling on the population to dispose of food waste in the bins provided for this purpose, and not to throw waste into nature. This is particularly important in resting areas to which wild boars potentially have access. It is not recommended to bring back meat products from infected countries whose origin is unknown;
- access to pig farms is strictly limited to authorised persons, in compliance with biosecurity measures, in order to prevent the virus from being introduced;
- any wild boar corpse found in the wild should be reported to ALVA (via tel.: 247-82539) for analysis at the Veterinary Medicine Laboratory.
ALVA specified that the swine fever virus is not transmitted to humans and that the consumption of pork or wild boar meat is safe for public health.
