African swine fever (ASF) is a highly contagious and deadly viral disease affecting domestic pigs and wild boars. Understanding which environmental and demographic factors drive ASF occurrence is key to improving surveillance and control strategies, but access to detailed data is often limited.
In this study, Apenteng et al. from our partner at the University of Copenhagen used publicly available datasets (WOAH-WAHIS and EMPRES-i) to analyse ASF cases in domestic pigs and wild boars across Europe from 2018 to 2023. They assessed the association between several abiotic and biotic variables, including precipitation, temperature, land cover, and human-animal interface density, and ASF occurrence at different spatial resolutions.
The findings show that the factors associated with ASF differ between domestic pigs and wild boars. Land cover types such as industrial and transport units and inland wetlands were significant for both species. However, pig density, temperature, and human population density were only associated with ASF in domestic pigs. The model showed high prediction accuracy for domestic pigs but low accuracy for wild boars, highlighting the limitations of relying on public domain data alone. The authors emphasise the need to integrate restricted data on animal movements and carcass interactions to improve future predictions and disease control strategies.
Apenteng, O.O., Marques, A.R.P., Kjær, L.J. et al. Can public-domain datasets be leveraged to identify factors associated with the occurrence of African swine fever in europe?. Acta Vet Scand 67, 48 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13028-025-00832-7
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