title: Introduction of African swine fever into the European Union through illegal importation of pork and pork products.
abstract: Transboundary animal diseases can have very severe socio-economic impacts when introduced into new regions. The history of disease incursions into the European Union suggests that initial outbreaks were often initiated by illegal importation of meat and derived products. The European Union would benefit from decision-support tools to evaluate the risk of disease introduction caused by illegal imports in order to inform its surveillance strategy. However, due to the difficulty in quantifying illegal movements of animal products, very few studies of this type have been conducted. Using African swine fever as an example, this work presents a novel risk assessment framework for disease introduction into the European Union through illegal importation of meat and products. It uses a semi-quantitative approach based on factors that likely influence the likelihood of release of contaminated smuggled meat and products, and subsequent exposure of the susceptible population. The results suggest that the European Union is at non-negligible risk of African swine fever introduction through illegal importation of pork and products. On a relative risk scale with six categories from negligible to very high, five European Union countries were estimated at high (France, Germany, Italy and United Kingdom) or moderate (Spain) risk of African swine fever release, five countries were at high risk of exposure if African swine fever were released (France, Italy, Poland, Romania and Spain) and ten countries had a moderate exposure risk (Austria, Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal, Sweden and United Kingdom). The approach presented here and results obtained for African swine fever provide a basis for the enhancement of risk-based surveillance systems and disease prevention programmes in the European Union.
authors.affiliation: Veterinary Epidemiology & Public Health Group, Royal Veterinary College, Hatfield, Hertfordshire, United Kingdom. scostard@epixanalytics.com
authors.forename: Solenne
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Costard
authors.forename: Bryony Anne
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: Jones
authors.forename: Beatriz
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Martínez-López
authors.forename: Lina
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Mur
authors.forename: Ana
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: de la Torre
authors.forename: Marta
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Martínez
authors.forename: Fernando
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Sánchez-Vizcaíno
authors.forename: Jose-Manuel
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Sánchez-Vizcaíno
authors.forename: Dirk Udo
authors.initials: DU
authors.lastname: Pfeiffer
authors.forename: Barbara
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Wieland
mesh_terms: D000357:African Swine Fever / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000635:transmission*; D000818:Animals; D004781:Environmental Exposure / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005060:Europe / Q000453:epidemiology; D005062:European Union / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D019649:Food Industry / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D008460:Meat / Q000821:virology*; D018570:Risk Assessment; D013552:Swine / Q000821:virology*