The Minister of Agriculture, Òscar Ordeig, is confident that this week the sequencing of the strain of African swine fever (ASF) that was detected in wild boars in Collserola will be done and that the results will serve to “definitely rule out” the theory that the virus came from one of the laboratories of the IRTA-CReSA Animal Health Research Center. In an interview with Catalunya Ràdio, Ordeig has defended that the sequencing is a “laborious process” and has promised to announce the result once they have it.
What the sequencing will allow is to identify the genetic mutations behind the virus detected in Catalonia; it’s like a kind of ID that makes it unique and allows you to compare it with the other strains in circulation. This way it will be possible to know if the strain found in the dead boars matches any of those used for experiments at the center. In this step of the research, a European laboratory, the Ministry and the Biomedical Research Institute (IRB) are involved.
“Maximum empathy” with the primary sector
The councilor also talked about the other disease that has alerted Catalan livestock farmers in recent weeks: nodular dermatosis. He assured that the first aid payments for this outbreak, one of the issues that the sector claims, will be made this week and the rest “at the beginning of next year”. “Faster would have been impossible,” he said.
Precisely Unió de Pagesos had called a new protest action of the agricultural sector in the Transversal Axis for this Monday. The mobilization, which started at 9 in the morning, has brought the farmers to the streets to demand above all “a control of the overpopulation of hunting fauna” and a “review” of the Livestock Health Service. Ordeig has shown “maximum respect and empathy” with the tractors and has admitted that the management of hunting wildlife is an area where “action had to be taken for a long time”. He has also defended, however, that the “results” will not arrive “in four days”. “We have to make a turning point, yes. We will, yes,” he replied.
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