EUROPA - Animal Health & Welfare - Animal Diseases

Classical swine fever (CSF) can be found among pigs and wild boar.
Transmission takes place through direct contact between animals (secretions, excretions, semen, blood) or indirect contact through vehicles, clothes, instruments, needles, insufficiently cooked waste food fed to pigs; it can also be spread by pig traders and farm visitors. The infection is transplacental.
Sources for the virus are blood and all tissues, secretions and excretions of sick and dead animals. Congenitally infected piglets are persistently viraemic and may shed the virus for months.
Prevention can be achieved through effective communication between veterinary authorities, veterinary practitioners and pig farmers, effective disease reporting and animal identification system, a strict import policy for live pigs, fresh and cured meat, quarantine of pigs before admission into the herd, sterilisation or prohibition of waste food and serological surveillance.
In case of outbreaks in the EU, one needs to resort to the slaughtering of all pigs of affected farms and destruction of cadavers and bedding, disinfection, designation of infected zone, control of pig movement, epidemiological investigation, tracing of sources and spread, surveillance of infected zone. If appropriate, emergency vaccination can also be used.
It is a List A disease, according to the OIE Classification of Diseases. This means it is a transmissible disease that has the potential for very serious and rapid spread, irrespective of national borders, that is of serious socio-economic or public health consequence and that is of major importance in the international trade of animals and animal products.

- Council Directive 2001/89/EEC of 23 October 2001 on Community measures for the control of classical swine fever (+ Corrigenda).

- Commission Decision 1999/246/EEC of 30 March 1999 approving certain contingency plans for the control of classical swine fever.

- Commission Decision 2000/133/EC of 14 January 2000 amending Decision 1999/246/EEC approving certain contingency plans for the control of classical swine fever.

In response to classical swine fever in certain bordering parts of France, Germany and Luxembourg, the Commission has adopted:

i) Decision 2002/626/EC approving the plan submitted by France for the eradication of classical swine fever from feral pigs in Moselle and Meurthe-et-Moselle.

ii) Decision 2003/135/EC on the approval of the plans for the eradication of classical swine fever and the emergency vaccination of feral pigs against classical swine fever in Germany, in the federal states of Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland, amended by Decision 2004/146/EC.

iii) Decision 2003/136/EC on the approval of the plans for the eradication of classical swine fever and the emergency vaccination of feral pigs against classical swine fever in Luxembourg.

iv) Decision 2003/363/EC approving the plan for the eradication of classical swine fever in feral pigs in certain areas of Belgium.

v) Decision 2003/526/EC concerning protection measures relating to classical swine fever in Belgium, France, Germany and Luxembourg.

Classical swine fever is a notifiable disease, according to Council Directive 82/894/EEC of 21 December 1982 on the notification of animal diseases within the Community.

Click on ADNS for a description of the notification system and the latest health situation table.

Commission Decision 2002/106/EC of 1 February 2002 approving a Diagnostic Manual establishing diagnostic procedures, sampling methods and criteria for evaluation of the laboratory tests for the confirmation of classical swine fever (Text with EEA relevance).

The Commission has adopted a decision approving a new discriminatory test to be used after vaccination against classical swine fever (CSF). This test allows to distinguish vaccinated pigs from pigs naturally infected with CSF virus.