German swine fever case prompts slaughter of pigs
Date: 11-Feb-02
Country: GERMANY
The state also confirmed cases in January this year and October 2001. As in the other cases, infection by wild pigs is believed to be the cause of the latest outbreak.
"We have a very large number of wild pigs in our region and some have swine fever," the spokesman said.
The state this week received permission from the European Union to start inoculating wild animals, he said. Last week the state is starting to place 250,000 portions of vaccinated bait in the region's forests.
Swine fever is a highly infectious pig disease but it is not dangerous to humans. In the past large slaughtering programmes have been used to stamp it out and many countries also ban imports of pork from states with the disease.
