BELGRADE — Officials in Serbia have started putting down 11,000 pigs at a farm in the country’s western region after an outbreak of African swine fever (ASF) was confirmed there, according to a report Wednesday from the Tanjug news agency, which cited Agriculture Minister Dragan Glamocic.
The affected farm is located in the village of Hrtkovci, and the culling process is expected to take a number of days to complete. According to Tanjug, Minister Glamocic indicated that the farm’s owners will receive compensation from the government.
“The pigs are euthanised painlessly and then safely disposed of,” Glamocic was quoted as saying.
This latest outbreak is not an isolated incident — Serbia is currently dealing with several active cases of African swine fever across the country.
Over the past two months, thousands of pigs have already been destroyed in the western Macva region, an area that shares borders with both Bosnia and Croatia.
While African swine fever poses no health risk to people, it is highly contagious among domestic pigs and wild boar and can spread rapidly once an outbreak takes hold.
