Control room
A clear national strategy shared with the Regions involved to stop the regional swine fever campaign, spread of African swine fever and eradicate the virus, strengthening the good control and prevention practices adopted so far. This was decided in the control room which took place in Rome, in which the ministries of Agriculture, Health, Civil Protection, Defense and Interior participated together with the representatives of the Regions involved. There Emilia Romagna region, represented by the councilors for health policies and agriculture, positively evaluates that during the meeting the seriousness of the problem was acknowledged at a national level and that we are moving towards a uniform control activity across the entire territory, to create coordination in managing the epidemic. Furthermore, the Region has asked for a reinforcement of the presence of veterinary personnel for checks on farms and in production plants for activities related to the export of products of porcine origin and for the control of the disease in wild boars, in particular for the territories - such as Emilia-Romagna, Lombardy and Piedmont – where the impact on the pig sector could be particularly significant.
An advance to be blocked
The fact that the desire has been expressed to include epidemic diseases among the competences of the Civil Protection, thus borrowing its regulatory instruments, is also considered a step forward, an element that allows us to give further incisiveness to address the advancement of the swine fever. The Region shares the need to assign the national commissioner the special powers necessary to act promptly in derogation of procurement regulations; the need to act quickly was also underlined, because with each passing day the risks for the production sector increase with possible repercussions on the entire sector.
The commitment of the Region
Since the onset of the first case of PSA in Italy, in Piedmont in January 2022, the Emilia-Romagna Region has deployed its own resources to first prevent and then contain the spread of the disease. In recent years it has first approved a risk containment plan and subsequently a disease eradication plan with the identification of the areas where the wild boar depopulation should be carried out, the times in which to carry it out (by the summer of 2024) and the estimate of the population of wild boars to be reached to slow down the contagion. Much attention is also paid to the biosecurity of the farms, with the planning of checks throughout the regional territory. The plan has two main objectives: to avoid the further spread of the infection in the regional territory and to reduce the risk of the infection reaching pig farms.
Depopulation
Once the control plan for the wild boar species was approved and the critical districts identified, we proceeded with the definition of two tenders which will be operational in a few days to further strengthen the wild boar culling activities, which were able to carry out depopulation interventions both by culling the wild boars by shooting than through capture via traps. A third tender is being defined to allow the use of the entire sum of two million euros that the Region made available to the commissioner structure last year. For 2024, 900 thousand euros have been made available to the provincial police for the implementation of provincial wildlife control plans, which are added to the 4,8 million that the Region transfers annually to the Provinces for wildlife management. Starting from 2024, there will be the possibility of reporting with the head killed (130 euros) and the possibility for provincial police forces to establish agreements with external bodies including territorial hunting areas (source: Emilia Romagna Region).
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