Ministry of Agriculture Scenario Involves Culling for Bird Flu in Pigs

The scenario drawn up by the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality includes a scenario involving culling if bird flu makes pigs sick. That is possible in theory.

Only if it cannot be ruled out that several pigs have become infected with bird flu, should the entire pig population on an infected farm be culled.

Surveillance system

The script is part of a system that structurally investigates whether bird flu occurs on pig farms. POV, GD, RIVM, Wageningen University & Research, Erasmus University and LNV work together in this surveillance system. The RIVM conducted a pilot study on 90 pig farms, spread throughout the Netherlands, where the presence of bird flu was investigated. Nothing was found. To exclude any risk, it was decided to continue conducting the research at regular intervals. A script has also been drawn up, an obligation that applies to every notifiable animal disease.

Letter to Parliament

This is evident from a letter that outgoing LNV Minister Piet Adema sent to the House of Representatives yesterday (29 January). POV, but also an expert such as Professor Arjan Stegeman of Utrecht University, assumes that an outbreak of bird flu on pig farms is only theoretically possible. The chance of swine flu spreading to humans is less small.

Wild pigs

The letter to Parliament does not say in so many words about the risk of wild boars becoming infected with bird flu and transmitting it to pigs and (via pigs or otherwise) to humans. However, work is being done on an app with which ‘nature volunteers’ can report dead mammals they find in nature.

2024-01-30 09:30:27
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