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National officials probing the ongoing ASF outbreak in the northeastern region are now considering the chance that the disease may have escaped from a scientific laboratory. Attention has narrowed to five nearby labs as possible sources.

Confirmed Cases and Industry Concerns

Thirteen cases of the fever have been confirmed in wild boars in the countryside outside Barcelona since 28 November. This has led Spain – the European Union's biggest exporter of pig products – to rush to control the outbreak before it escalates into a significant threat to the country's €8.8bn-a-year pig meat export industry.

Shifting Investigative Focus

At first, local officials suspected the outbreak started after a boar ate contaminated food brought in from outside Spain – possibly a thrown away food item from a haulier.

However, the Spanish ministry of agriculture has initiated a new investigation after determining that the variant of the virus detected in the dead animals in Catalonia is not the same as the one reported to be circulating in other EU member states. Investigative findings indicate the strain in question is rather similar to one detected in the country of Georgia in the year 2007.

"The discovery of a strain similar to the one that was present in Georgia does not, therefore, rule out the chance that its source lies in a high-security facility," said the agriculture department.

Research Connection Examined

The 'Georgia-2007' virus strain is a 'standard' virus frequently used in experimental infections in secure labs to study the virus or to evaluate the effectiveness of vaccines, which are currently under development. The analysis suggests that the virus might not have started in livestock or meat products from any of the countries where the infection is currently present.

Official Actions and Audit

In reaction, Salvador Illa announced he had instructed the Catalan agrifood research institute to conduct an inspection of several facilities that work with the ASF virus within a 20km distance of the outbreak site.

"The regional government isn’t ruling out any scenarios when it comes to the source of the incident of this disease, but neither is it confirming any," the official stated. "Every theory remain on the table. Above all, we need to understand what happened."

Latest Control Efforts

The agriculture ministry have reported thirteen infections of the disease – each one in deceased wild boar found within six kilometers of the initial focus. Officials added the remains of 37 more animals found in the zone have been analysed, with every one testing negative for swine fever. Specialists sent to the thirty-nine swine operations within the surrounding zone have detected no sign of the disease on those farms. Over one hundred members from the nation's emergency response forces have additionally been sent to the area to work alongside police officers and wildlife rangers.

Global Context of African Swine Fever

Long native to Africa, African swine fever is not dangerous to people but often fatal to swine. In 2018, the disease emerged in China, which is home to about half of the global pig population. By the following year, there were fears that up to one hundred million pigs had been culled or died. Subsequently, the pathogen was confirmed to be in Germany, home to one of the EU’s biggest swine herds.

The Country's Crucial Position in Pork Production

The nation, which is the European Union's largest producer of pig meat, sold pig meat products worth 5.1 billion euros to other European nations in the previous year, and nearly €3.7bn of pork products to markets outside Europe. National data indicate that Spain processed fifty-eight million pigs in 2021 – an rise of 40% from a decade earlier.