Latvian Food and Veterinary Service (PVD) has received reports of more than 60 dead wild boars found in Madona County, as LETA was informed by PVD Veterinary Monitoring Department’s Infectious Animal Diseases Surveillance Unit’s manager Mārtiņš Seržants.
He said PVD has responded also to information reported on X (formerly Twitter) about an unusually large number of dead wild boars in Madona. “Although results of laboratory tests will become known in the coming days, we can say with high probability the cause of death was the African swine fever (ASF),” said Seržants.
He also explained that since the 2014, when ASF was first registered in Latvia, such “finds” are not rare. Since summer 2021 there has been a repeated epidemiological wave of ASF in Latvia. “Most of the wild boar population in Latvia die an agonising death because of this infection,” stresses Seržants, adding that because there is no vaccine for this virus, the only effective measure is maintaining a very small population density over several years and disposing of the carcasses of dead animals.
PVD invites residents to report found dead wild boar carcasses to the service or their municipal administration.
Disposal of carcasses of dead wild boars helps reduce the spread of the virus. To motivate residents to do this, a reward of EUR 50 is promised for every found carcass.
LETA previously reported that ASF was confirmed in 100 wild boars in Latvia last year. A week prior, 11 new cases were found.
ASF infection was confirmed for 42 wild boars in Madona County, 27 in Arona Parish, nine in Lazdona Parish, three in Mārciena Parish and three in Mētriena Parish last week.
The virus was also confirmed in 21 wild boars in Jēkabpils County, 15 wild boars in Viesīte Parch, five in Salas Parish and one wild boar in Sēlpils Parish, as well as 13 wild boars in Gulbene County’s Lizuma Parish.
In total, so far this year, ASF has been confirmed for 343 wild boars in 67 parishes of 22 Latvian counties.
Since June 2014, when ASF was first registered in Latvia, the virus has been detected in a total of 8 621 wild boars, of which in 2014 ASF was detected in 217 wild boars in Latvia, in 2015 – 1 048, in 2016 – 1 146, in 2017 – 1 431, in 2018 – 905, in 2019 – 430, in 2020 – 377, in 2021 – 448, in 2022 – in 1 274 wild boars, but in 2023 – in 1 002 wild boars.
Also read: Number of newborns in registered in Latvia in January down by 7.9%
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Food and Veterinary Service reports more than 60 dead wild boars in Latvia
