It was announced a couple of months ago. The laying of the anti-boar wire mesh which will have to limit the movements of feral pigs in the red zone in order to contain African swine fever infections. One hundred and forty kilometers in length that will surround some areas of the 114 Municipalities between lower Piedmont and Liguria, from Acqui Terme in Alessandria to the western border with the province of Pavia. "We must identify the path of the epidemic and act accordingly - said the national commissioner for the swine emergency Angelo Ferrari - eliminating all potentially infected wild boars ".
It will be one and a half meters high. Anchored to the ground, it can be disassembled and reassembled as needed. A pig-sized solution, as is this virus: for humans it is not dangerous, but in pigs it reaches a 98 percent death rate. According to the data of the experimental Zooprophylactic institute, the cases ascertained between Piedmont and Liguria are 125. In Lombardy they still remain zero, but there has been talk of adopting consistent prevention measures for weeks. As Ferrari points out, these are numbers "definitely lower than expected. However, it is difficult to understand the ways and times of diffusion ". In fact, it is still unclear how this strain of swine fever arrived in Italy.
The first area to be limited will be the one where the first infected wild boar carcass was found, i.e. near the Municipality of Molare, in the province of Alessandria. To finance the networks, the Piedmont Region has advanced more than eight million euros. The Italian GDP depends for 3,5 per cent on the market that revolves around pig farms, and this virus could have consequences both in terms of animal health and economics. Furthermore, if the nets are not positioned properly, they could prove useless. A bit like what happened in Rome in recent days. Ferrari spoke clearly of what are the future projects to fight the virus: "First the steel net, then the killing by the hunters" (Fanpage).