Swine fever: Animal husbandry department to cull pigs in Kerala

The Animal Husbandry department is gearing up to cull the pigs at a farm at Kattimoola near Tavinhal in Wayanad district after three cases of African swine fever was confirmed there.

As many as 349 pigs at the farm would be culled from Sunday, P. R. Rajesh, District Animal Husbandry officer told The Hindu.

A 12-member Rapid Response Team has been constituted for the purpose and it would be led by A. Dayal, senior Veterinary surgeon Mananthavady, Dr. Rajesh said.

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The disease was confirmed on Friday after samples of dead animals from two pig farms in the Mananthavady area, including the farm at Kattimoola, tested positive at the National Institute of High-Security Animal Diseases at Bhopal. As many as 43 pigs at a pig farm at Mananthavady and one at a farm at Tavinhal died of the disease in a month.

Though African swine fever is a highly contagious viral disease in domestic and wild pigs, it does not pose a threat to humans as it would not be transmitted from pigs to humans, he said.

One kilometre radius of the areas where the disease was reported would be declared an “infect zone” prior to the drive and pigs in the areas would be culled to keep the disease at bay and the fodder kept for the animals would also be destroyed, he said.

Two to ten-km areas would be declared surveillance zones and animals in the areas would be closely monitored. Compensation would be given to owners of culled animals as per the Centre’s norms, he added.