African swine fever costs Asia between 55 bln and 130 bln U.S. dollars: ADB experts

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MANILA, May 28 (Xinhua) -- African swine fever (ASF) has cost Asia between 55 billion U.S. dollars and 130 billion U.S. dollars, including as much as 77 billion U.S. dollars in lost revenue, according to Asian Development Bank (ADB) experts.

"A deadly viral epidemic is devastating pig populations in Asia, threatening livelihoods and food security and costing economies billions of dollars," said Najibullah Habib, the health specialist of the ADB's East Asia Regional Department, and Thomas Weaver, an agriculture and livestock consultant of the Manila-based bank, in a recent article published in the Asia Development Blog.

"African swine fever is driving home the continued importance of strengthening the capacity of nations to detect and respond effectively to emerging diseases," the experts said.

The first confirmed outbreak of African swine fever in Asia was reported in August 2018 and since then it has spread to through Southeast Asia and other parts of Asia and the Pacific.

The highly virulent strain of the virus circulating in Asia has an estimated case fatality rate of 90 percent to 95 percent in pigs with no effective vaccine.

"The responses to the (ASF) virus have been severe by necessity. Widespread culling has been implemented in most countries. Movement bans and market closures have been enacted," the experts further said.

"Heightened monitoring has been implemented to the degree feasible. Compensation systems have been established to varying degrees. Extensive awareness-raising campaigns have been developed, encouraging reporting of any suspicious disease and improved biosecurity measures," the experts added.

The experts added that the true burden of the disease is unlikely to ever be fully known.

"The paucity of accurate production data, likelihood of misdiagnosis and underreporting, political incentives, complexity of assessing indirect costs and the difficulties of accounting for impacts on human health and nutrition, loss of livelihoods and less tangible impacts such effects on social capital, make accurate assessment problematic," the experts said.

However, they said the assessment of the impact is critical to policy-making and the provision of resources to mitigate risk and control disease.

"Our research indicates that direct costs of African swine fever after one year was 55 billion U.S. dollars to 130 billion U.S. dollars with 28 billion U.S. dollars to 46 billion U.S. dollars attributed to initial losses to disease and culling, 4 billion U.S. dollars to 7 billion U.S. dollars to the cost of replacement breeding animals, and 23 billion U.S. dollars to 77 billion U.S. dollars in lost revenue," the article said.

ASF is harmless to humans but highly contagious and fatal for pigs as there is no known cure. Enditem

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