from the sandwich theory to the laboratory leak, from the inevitable epidemic to the excess of wild boars

The panic in the sector was not unfounded in the face of a disease which, although not contagious and does not affect humans, is not zoonotic, but devastating from an economic point of view: highly transmissibledestroys an entire farm in a few days, deadly effects which have as an immediate correlation the closure of borders and the total or partial ban on exports. A month after the outbreak was declared, the ministry and the Ministry of Agriculture are moderately optimistic given the confirmation that none of the wild boars tested positive – 27 so far – were outside the territory. containment perimeter of six kilometers. “We are doing well”, underlines the government.

Can the epidemic be considered contained? For the purposes of import markets, a country can only declare itself ASF-free one year after the last positive result. Another thing is control on the ground. Authorities are reasonably satisfied that the outbreak remains within the first six kilometer radius, itself within a wider surveillance radius of 20 kilometers. The main fear, namely that the epidemic would reach one of the 57 pig farms located in the area, now seems to have been ruled out.

Containment or Kalashnikov tactic?Faced with the impatience of certain voices who came demanding to enter the area with rifle in hand and exterminate all the wild boars, the Generalitat, taking into account what was established in an emergency plan which had just been updated a few weeks earlier, adopted the tactic of containment. That is, limit the area and let the infection kill the wild boars on its own. As an EC expert explained in a meeting with the press, countries like Romania and Poland succumbed to pressure and ordered massive army raids. They erred in what experts colloquially call the “Kalashnikov tactic” and the PPA expanded.

On the other hand, in Belgium, Sweden and the Czech Republic, caution was chosen and outbreaks were eradicated thanks to confinement and patience. “It is better to do nothing than to make mistakes,” summarizes the EC. “Wild boar that remain alive in the area must be captured using methods that prevent their dispersal. “Raids are not applicable,” the emergency plan states. “This is a long-distance race,” adds the Generalitat.

Act quickly and massively?The containment tactic involves a large deployment of troops on the ground. “We had to act quickly and massively,” summarizes the Generalitat, which led, with the subsequent discontent of the independence movement, to not delaying for more than an hour the request for help from the Military Emergency Unit (UME), which, together with the Seprona of the Civil Guard, was integrated into a device of hundreds of agents led by the Forestry Agents of the Generalitat. Perimeter fencing, closing of wildlife crossings under roads, chemical repellents and capture with cages have been the main weapons with which infected animals have been prevented from leaving the containment zone, successfully so far. The increase in biosecurity protocols on farms, the ban on full access to the infected area and the initial veto on activities in neighboring forest and recreational areas – Sant Llorenç del Munt i l’Obac, Serralada de Marina, Parque Fluvial del Besòs, Serralada Litoral and Sant Miquel del Fai – are some of the measures of a plan that was already “maximum” from the beginning.

Too many wild boars?The question that remains is whether anything could have been done sooner. The answer is yes. The proliferation of wild boars, a common problem in many regions of Spain, is particularly serious in Catalonia and has already been reported in official documents as a risk factor favoring the spread of ASF, as also demonstrated by European experience. This is why the Generalitat has announced its intention to halve the population of 125,000 wild boars in Catalonia.

The origin of the epidemic: laboratory leak or “snack”?This is currently the main unknown to be resolved. The first hypothesis that was put forward is the one that became popular as the “sandwich theory,” not because of any event or frivolity, but because in previous epidemics – the one that devastated Spain from the 1950s to the 1990s, for example – contaminated food was the most common origin. The fact that the first two wild boars were about a hundred meters from a laboratory testing ASF was not taken into account until a genetic analysis pointed to escape as a possible cause. For what reason? The Collserola strain is very similar to the one known as the Georgia 2007 strain, which is the one commonly used in experiments in laboratories such as the IRTA-CReSA of the Generalitat. The Court of Instruction 2 of Cerdanyola del Vallés ordered the search of the facilities while two reports – that of the EC experts and that of the external auditors – found no anomalies in the center.

Research center called into question?Determining whether the origin is the aforementioned laboratory will not be possible until the genomic sequencing of all samples from said center is completed and compared to that of infected wild boars, two parallel reports that the Generalitat has promised to make public as soon as they become available. From a practical point of view, this will not change the way in which the crisis is managed – a management approved by the veterinary experts sent on site by the EC – but it would represent a very serious setback to the much-vaunted excellence of the Catalan scientific centers.

A preventable epidemic?Since ASF reached Russia in 2007 via the Caucasus, European experience shows that containing outbreaks is a very complicated, but not impossible, task. The European map of ASF in November 2025 shows a significant presence of outbreaks in the Baltic countries, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania and Italy, the latter country which managed to eradicate the outbreak from the metropolitan area of ​​Rome but is powerless in the face of the proliferation of ASF among wild boars in the north. From east to west, outbreaks have also been declared in Germany. Experts emphasize that sooner or later ASF would have arrived in Spain: the surprise is that it arrived so quickly, which can be explained by the arrival of contaminated food, a laboratory leak – the two main hypotheses – or even premeditated contamination. The sector is crossing its fingers, and while farms are increasing biosecurity measures and the sector is lowering prices to release the accumulated “stock”, in Collserola, a month after the outbreak was declared, the guard is not down.