‘Contaminated sausage sandwich’ blamed for swine fever outbreak in Spain

Spain has called in the military to help contain an outbreak of a deadly virus affecting pigs, which may have started from a contaminated sandwich.

Soldiers have been deployed in a desperate effort to identify and control African swine fever (ASF), which is spreading among animals around Barcelona for the first time in three decades.

Drones and sniffer dogs are now being used to hunt down boar carcasses for testing, with the number of confirmed cases in wild boars shooting up to nine on Tuesday, up from two last week.

Oscar Ordeig, the regional agriculture minister, revealed to Catalunya Radio that officials are working on the assumption that the virus may have spread from contaminated food brought into the country from abroad.

“The most likely option ... is that cold cuts, a sandwich, contaminated food, could end up in a bin – we have to take into account that Bellaterra is an area with a lot of traffic from all over Europe – and then that a wild boar would have eaten it and become infected,” he said on Monday.

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Spanish newspaper El Pais reported that the wild boar may have eaten the contaminated sausage in a sandwich thrown away in a ditch, and then became infected.

Authorities are currently analysing more suspected cases in the area and expect the number to rise.

Mr Ordeig said the absence of infected wild boar elsewhere in Catalonia and France so far suggests human transportation of contaminated food could have introduced the virus. The infected area is close to the AP-7 highway, a major transport route linking Spain and France.

ASF is harmless to humans, but spreads rapidly among pigs and wild boar, for whom it can be fatal. It is not the same as swine flu and does not affect humans.

The disease is highly contagious and can spread if healthy pigs eat infectious products or make contact with infected pigs or contaminated items.

In Spain, most recently, it was first detected in two wild boar in a wooded, hilly area outside Barcelona before seven more cases were recorded on Tuesday.

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The outbreak has forced Spain to freeze some exports, threatening its multi-billion-euro pork industry. Britain’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said on Friday it would block Spanish pork coming into the country until further notice.

China also banned pork imports from Barcelona province as reports emerged.

Efforts to control the outbreak intensified on Sunday, with 300 Catalan police and rural agents deployed, followed by 117 members of Spain’s military emergency unit UME on Monday.

On farms, trade association Interporc said strict controls already in place for disease prevention had been reinforced.

These included testing and quarantining of new animals, perimeter fencing and bird nets, regular disinfections and checks on drinking water, a strict employee dress code and proper storage of pig semen samples.

Government vets were checking farms and taking samples, but none of the 39 in the area have tested positive.