The Ministry of Agriculture is investigating whether the swine fever outbreak originated in a laboratory.

BarcelonaThe Ministry of Agriculture has launched a new investigation into the origin of African swine fever (ASF) after detecting that the virus causing the outbreak in Catalonia does not resemble those currently circulating in neighboring countries. This leads the Spanish government to suspect that it may have originated in a biological containment facility, that is, a laboratory where research on this disease is conducted. The strain detected in the deceased wild boars is very similar to the one that circulated in Georgia in 2007 and matches the one commonly used in experimental infections at research centers to evaluate, for example, the effectiveness of vaccines currently being developed to prevent infection. Now, after receiving the European Union (EU) laboratory report on Friday with the sequencing results of the virus that caused the outbreak, the Ministry has informed the Nature Protection Service (Seprona) of the Civil Guard of the need to investigate why the virus is so similar to the one that circulated in Georgia in 2007. For its part, the Catalan government also reported this Friday that it has asked the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) to investigate the sequencing of the virus in parallel with the work being carried out by the Ministry.

"Viruses, under natural conditions, when they spread through infection cycles in animals, undergo changes in their genome to some extent. The fact that a virus similar to the one that circulated in Georgia has been found does not, therefore, exclude the possibility that its origin could be in a biological containment facility," the ministry argues in a statement. Furthermore, the European Union report suggests "the possibility that the origin of the virus is not in animals or animal products," which until now was the leading hypothesis. According to the results of this EU sequencing, all viruses currently circulating in member states belong to genetic groups 2-28 and not to genetic group 29, which corresponds to the virus that caused the outbreak in Collserola and is very similar to genetic group 1 that circulated. The Government calls for "caution."

Faced with these new suspicions, the Minister of Agriculture, Òscar Ordeig, stated that the report is not conclusive, called for "caution," and urged people to avoid drawing hasty conclusions: "We're letting the scientists do their work; they'll have every new development as soon as it happens, without filters or cover-ups." Regarding the possibility that the virus may have emerged from the Animal Health Research Centre (IRTA-CReSA), which has been studying the virus for two decades. And that it is located near where the first infected animals were found, the minister has said that the Government "is not ruling anything out nor confirming anything."

This week, the head of the center's High Biocontainment Unit, Xavier Abad, explained to ARA that they have analyzed all the actions taken with this virus in the last three months and "no incidents have been detected," but he also acknowledged that "zero risk does not exist."

On the other hand, Rural Agents found two more dead wild boars this Friday within the six-kilometer zone surrounding the epicenter of the swine fever outbreak, raising the number of dead pigs taken for analysis to 52. The head of the regional area in Barcelona, ​​Jaume Torralba, detailed the security perimeter.

Possible third perimeter

Torralba pointed out that there is a "high probability" that all the wild boars within the first radius are infected, so it is expected that the individuals will die progressively. Following the recommendations of European institutions, the strategy for this area is to "disturb the wild boars as little as possible," since it is not desirable for them to move from this zone given the high possibility that they are all infected with African swine fever (ASF). Taking into account the lethality of the virus, specialists estimate that 75% of the wild boars in this radius will die progressively in the coming days. Regarding the second radius, of 20 km, they are working on the hypothesis that some infected wild boars may appear, so they are studying the creation of a third security perimeter. "We have to be prepared so that we don't have to start from scratch like we did a week ago," said Torralba. Unlike the other two, this one would not restrict human access to the natural area.