Items Tagged with 'OIE'

The U.S. is counting on an expensive campaign to protect nearby territories from African swine fever as well as international respect for the World Organization for Animal Health to protect American pork production and exports.

The USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is working to throw up a “protection zone” around Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands to insulate the U.S. pork sector in the event that African Swine Fever jumps from the Dominican Republic to either of the U.S. territories.

African Swine Fever was confirmed in the Dominican Republic last Tuesday, marking its first detection in the Western Hemisphere and the closest it has been to the United States in approximately 40 years.

Earlier this year, Germany faced a $1 billion loss in access to pork export markets after a single case of African Swine Fever (ASF) was detected in a wild boar. The population of feral swine in the United States, estimated between 4-9 million, also poses a threat to export security.