The alarms went off after three decades. Many dead wild boars discovered in the capital area Launched an unprecedented surveillance device To stop the disease that threatens to destroy the country’s livestock production.
However, the danger is not limited to Catalonia: other European countries have also activated their alert protocols, realizing that the disease could cross borders and affect entire rural economies. From France to Italy and Germany, health authorities are coordinating efforts to contain an invisible enemy stalking forests and markets, while the European Union is working to strengthen controls and deploy emergency teams in a process that is already taking on continental dimensions.
Swine fever outside Spanish borders
African swine fever (ASF), which arrived in Russia from the Caucasus in 2007, It has been advancing ceaselessly throughout Eastern and Central Europe. The disease was initially centered in southern Russia, then spread to the north of the country and, starting in 2012, across the border into Ukraine and Belarus, two countries bordering the European Union.
within the European Union, The virus was first detected in 2014 on wild boar and domestic pig farms in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Poland.. Between 2016 and 2017, African swine fever remained active in northeastern Europe, with new outbreaks appearing in the Czech Republic and Romania, and in 2018 it was first confirmed in Hungary, Belgium and Bulgaria.
The spread did not stop: at the end of the decade, the disease reached Slovakia, Serbia, Greece and Germany, while in 2022 and 2023 it appeared in North Macedonia, northern Italy, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo and Sweden. At the beginning of 2024, the first cases were recorded in Montenegro and AlbaniaThis reinforces a pattern of expansion that continues to challenge European surveillance systems.
Actively focused in Europe in 2025
Currently African swine fever It still exists in 13 European Union countries: Germany, Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovakia, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic and Romania, according to the Agriculture Ministry’s statistics.
Outside the European Union, the disease is also affecting countries in Eastern Europe and the Balkan region, including Ukraine, Moldova, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, North Macedonia and others.