Epidemiological characteristics and risk factors related to African swine fever at household farm level in Cho Gao district of Tien Giang province

Abstract

African swine fever (ASF) epidemic occurred in Tien Giang province in the second half of 2019, and
there is a high risk of re-occurring the epidemic in the near future. A retrospective study was conducted to
evaluate the epidemiological characteristics of the epidemic and the risk factors associated with the ASF at
the household farm level. There were 285 households farms in the surveying areas, of which 173 household
farms having the ASF cases were interviewed to collect the target information using the questionnaires. The
surveyed result showed that the ASF epidemic occurred from July, 2019 and reached peak in October, 2019
with the mortality rate up to 40% and there were a lot of the heavy and serious clinical signs in the adult pigs
(especially in the pregnant sows). The risk factors related to ASF occurring in the household farms in the
surveyed areas included: the large size sow farms (lot number of sows), the farms located near the disease
pig burial pits, near the outbreaks, and housing area adjacent to the pig farms. This research results contribute
the important information for building up the effective solutions for epidemic prevention in Tien Giang province