ADAMS COUNTY, Ill (WGEM) -- With new cases of the African Swine Fever Virus confirmed in the Western Hemisphere, pork producers are stepping up their biosecurity.
The virus originated in Eastern Europe and Asia back in 2007, and in recent weeks has been confirmed in the Dominican Republic and Haiti.
While the virus is unable to transmit from pigs to humans, it does pose a large threat to the pork industry. This is of particular concern in Illinois, which is one of the largest pork producers in the nation.
"We're the fourth largest pork producing state in the nation. It's about a 11 to 13 billion dollars of product that goes through our state and about 57 thousand jobs are related to pork production," said Adams County pork producer Randy Sims.
He said if the virus were to be spotted at a farm such as his, he would likely have to euthanize his entire farm. That's why Sims said the USDA has taken some proactive measures to prevent an outbreak in the U.S.
"The USDA has really stepped up. They're putting another, I believe, five hundred million toward that effort and more agents… and also to help us as producers increase our biosecurity as much as we can," said Sims.
He said biosecurity has also been strengthened at airports, such as Chicago, and other measures such as strict tracking with premises ID numbers for locations with animals.
Sims said he believes these measures, plus the education and coordination of the risk to federal, state and local governments should help protect against an outbreak.
The USDA has also recently announced that a vaccine is in development which has shown some progress against the virus. You can find that information here.
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October 01, 2021 at 08:43AM
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Illinois pork industry monitoring new virus outbreaks - WGEM
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