Josep Usall: "The ministry rushed to say that the ASF could have come from a laboratory"

BarcelonaJosep Usall has been the director general of the Institute of Agrifood Research and Technology (IRTA) for almost eight years and acknowledges that the last few months have been the most challenging during his tenure at the helm of the institution. The Animal Health Research Center (IRTA-CReSA) was until recently at the center of a major controversy due to the outbreak of African swine fever (ASF) detected in Catalonia at the end of last year. Just a week after the first cases were reported, the Ministry of Agriculture announced that I was investigating whether the virus had escaped from a laboratoryThis made the Catalan center the prime suspect in the crisis, as it is located near where the first infected animals were found. Months of accusations and discrediting followed, the initial report of the Spanish government's scientific committee He rules out sabotage, natural transmission, or an accidental laboratory leak as the cause of the crisis.

How have they experienced the crisis from within?

— It was a very complex and intense situation. We were accused of being responsible for the outbreak, and at the same time, we were in charge of tracking it. And without any scientific evidence, simply because the detected cases were located near the center. This created a lot of tension at a time when we were working seven days a week, including Christmas and New Year's, to analyze the samples that kept arriving.

Do you understand why the ministry made that statement?

— I think they acted rashly. I understand the context of the crisis and the desire for transparency, but there was no scientific proof. There was a geographical coincidence, and they wanted to cover their bases. The statement didn't directly accuse us, but it raised doubts. Now they have conducted a very rigorous study and concluded that the origin was not a laboratory.

Has the institution suffered disrepute?

— Yes, some of our practices have been called into question, and this is a problem for a research center. It's true that we've also received support from many people we work with regularly. We'll now launch a campaign, which we've agreed upon with the Catalan Government, to revitalize IRTA's image with activities and events to highlight the value of our work. It's been demonstrated that we do excellent work.

Did they do the right thing by shielding themselves from communication?

— We decided that the government would make the statements first, and we would speak out when we had scientific evidence, as we do now. Scientific rigor is what supports our position. I believe it was a good strategy.

So, is the sandwich theory you proposed at the beginning of the crisis back in the lead?

— Yes, we've always said so. Perhaps it wasn't the most precise way to put it, the clearest message. But the most plausible hypothesis is the introduction of infected meat from a country where the virus is endemic. We know that some Eastern European countries have the virus on their farms, and that meat could have entered here. In any case, the virus sequence we detected wasn't recorded, but that doesn't mean it's new; it simply means it wasn't documented.

Can that hypothesis be proven? Will we be able to determine the origin of the outbreak?

— It's difficult to prove. Time has passed, and the infected piece of meat that caused the outbreak has probably already been eaten by a wild boar.

What can we do to protect ourselves from these threats?

— It's complex because we don't have vaccines or antiviral treatments, so there's no cure. The only thing we can do is prevent it. On the one hand, we have biosecurity measures to prevent it from entering farms, which we do very well because so far it hasn't. And the other is to prevent infected animals from spreading beyond the outbreak area. And to do that, we must eliminate the animals within the affected area or let them die naturally from the disease.

Last week, the following were detected: the first infected outside of ground zero.

— It is important that for two and a half months the outbreak has been contained within these 6 km; positive cases in the low-risk zone are, to some extent, expected within the 20 km radius. The surveillance and biosecurity measures being implemented have helped to slow the spread and contain the virus. We know that controlling this disease is a marathon, not a sprint, and we cannot let our guard down at any time.

Has swine fever returned to Catalonia to stay?

— I don't think so. It's difficult to predict how long we'll have it, because in other countries where the same thing has happened, it's taken at least one or two years to eradicate the disease, but I have no doubt that it will be eradicated. Now we must focus on prevention. We must try to keep cases within the designated area, and if they do, expand the area to control the outbreak. We can't do anything else.

Should we get used to this type of crisis?

— We must understand that zero risk does not exist and that with climate change and globalization, these phenomena will become more frequent. In recent decades, most human diseases have been zoonotic, meaning they originated in animals. Therefore, we must understand that the health of animals and the planet in general also affects us, and we must take care of it.