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National officials probing the recent ASF outbreak in Catalonia are now considering the possibility that the disease may have escaped from a research facility. Their focus has narrowed to several local labs as potential sources.

Outbreak Details and Industry Concerns

Thirteen infections of the virus have been confirmed in feral pigs in the rural areas outside Barcelona beginning on 28 November. This has led Spain – the European Union's largest pork exporter – to scramble to contain the situation before it becomes a serious threat to the country's multi-billion euro pork export industry.

Shifting Investigative Focus

At first, local authorities believed the outbreak may have begun after a wild boar consumed infected meat products imported from outside Spain – perhaps a discarded food item from a truck driver.

However, the national agriculture ministry has opened a new investigation after concluding that the strain of the pathogen found in the deceased animals in the region is different from the one reported to be present in other European countries. Investigative findings indicate the strain in question is rather similar to one detected in Georgia in the year 2007.

"This finding of a strain like the one that circulated in Georgia does not, therefore, exclude the chance that its source lies in a high-security facility," stated the agriculture department.

Laboratory Link Examined

The 'Georgia 2007' virus strain is a 'standard' virus frequently used in experimental infections in secure labs to study the virus or to test the effectiveness of vaccines, which are presently under development. The report suggests that the outbreak might not have originated in livestock or animal products from any of the nations where the infection is currently active.

Official Response and Audit

In response, the regional president of Catalonia stated he had instructed the Catalan agrifood research institute to carry out an audit of several facilities that work with the African swine fever pathogen within a 20km distance of the affected area.

"We are not excluding any scenarios when it comes to the origin of the outbreak of this disease, but nor are we confirming any," the official stated. "Every theory are on the table. Above all, we need to know what happened."

Latest Containment Measures

The agriculture ministry have reported thirteen infections of the virus – all of them in deceased wild boar found within 6km of the first detection site. Officials added the corpses of an additional 37 animals discovered in the zone have been tested, with every one showing no infection for swine fever. Experts dispatched to the thirty-nine swine operations within the surrounding zone have detected no trace of the disease on those farms. Over 100 members from the country's military emergencies unit have also been deployed to the region to work alongside police officers and forestry agents.

Global Background of ASF

For a long time native to Africa, African swine fever is not dangerous to people but often deadly to swine. In the year 2018, the virus turned up in the People's Republic of China, which is home to about half of the world’s pigs. By 2019, there were fears that up to 100 million pigs had been culled or died. Two years later, the virus was detected to be in Germany, home to one of the European Union's biggest pig farming industries.

The Country's Crucial Position in Meat Production

The nation, which is the European Union's biggest pork producer, sold pork products worth 5.1 billion euros to other EU countries last year, and almost 3.7 billion euros of pork products to markets outside the bloc. Official data indicate that the country slaughtered fifty-eight million pigs in the year 2021 – an increase of forty percent from a decade earlier.