BRUSSELS, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- A consultation meeting on the growing problem of African swine fever was held on Monday in Brussels, announced the Walloon Minister of Agriculture Rene Collin on his Twitter account.
The Walloon, Flemish and Belgian Federal ministers of agriculture shared the table with the European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety where they discussed the measures taken and to be taken to halt the problem of swine fever in the province of Luxembourg in Belgium.
The issue of swine fever will be on the agenda in next week's informal meeting of EU agriculture ministers in Austria, according to Belgian Minister of Agriculture Denis Ducarme.
African swine fever represents no legitimate danger for humans, but it affects mortality rates in the pig sector, a sector that represents 15,000 jobs in Belgium, according to Ducarme.
Today, "we have no sign that this sector is unhealthy", he insists, but signs of excitement appear on the side of extra-community trade.
Walloon Agricultural Minister Rene Collin announced that entering the security perimeter of 63,000 hectares in which dead corpses were found of wild boars infected by the virus is now prohibited until Oct. 14.
This concerns not only walkers but also hunters and loggers. The authorities want to avoid at all costs the dispersion and spread of the virus.
The goal is to find corpses of wild boars affected by the virus and to identify more precisely the exact location of the infection. "Then, once the perimeter is reduced, all the boars that remain there will be slaughtered," the minister said.
At present, five corpses of wild boars have been declared positive for African swine fever, a disease that is non-transmissible to humans but highly contagious to animals.
"Many other corpses are under analysis. We will arrive at tens or even 300, 400 boars, according to what the experts tell us," said Collin.
The negative economic consequences of the spread of African swine fever in Wallonia could be potentially very burdensome. Breeders, hunters and loggers may all stand to lose money. "This is a very important crisis," says Rene Collin.
