Swine fevers excluded in feral wild boar found dead

In this episode, Claire Scott, APHA's Pig Expert Group lead, and Cat Man, Veterinary Investigation Officer (VIO) at Starcross Veterinary Investigation Centre (VIC), discuss investigations into feral wild boar found dead, in which notifiable diseases including the swine fevers were ruled out.

This podcast includes pathological descriptions of animal disease which some listeners may find upsetting. 

This episode was recorded in July 2026.

Useful links: 

1. Find out how to report suspect notifiable animal disease. 
2. Read about this case on page 3 of the quarterly Great Britain pig disease surveillance emerging threats report for January  to March 2026.
3. Read more about diagnostic investigations into a cluster of deaths of wild boar from the Forest of Dean in 2021, which was published in the Vet Record.  
4. Find out how vets can submit farm animals in England and Wales for a post-mortem examination and check if the submission is eligible for free carcase collection. Find out how vets can submit samples from farm animals in England and Wales for diagnostic submissions. 
5. Find your nearest Veterinary Investigation Centre (VIC) or surveillance pathology partner to discuss submissions of wild mammals found dead. Report dead wild birds using this online tool.
6. Visit GOV.UK for information on what items can be brought into the UK and for information around the ban on personal meat imports currently in place to protect farmers from foot and mouth.
7. An on-line guide with images of the clinical signs and pathology of ASF is available to veterinarians and pig keepers. This notes that, at the start of an outbreak, deaths may initially just involve one or two pigs. Significantly increased mortality may only develop later once the virus has spread further in a group. 

 © Crown copyright 2026

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the sixth podcast in this series where we talk all about animal diagnostic investigations completed here at the Animal and Plant Health Agency. I'm Claire and I'm veteran leader of the APHA's Pig Expert Group. And today I have Kat with me to talk all about a case that was investigated by our APHA field colleagues. And this is a case in which swine fevers were excluded in world feral boars that had been found dead. We're going to use this case as a springboard to discuss some of the great surveillance completed in this area and consider what our listeners can do to help our efforts to remain free of swine fevers here in the UK, as well as other notifiable diseases. Kat, I'm so pleased to have you here today, and you're going to explain exactly why I think you're the perfect person to go through this case with us on this topic. So could I ask you to introduce yourself to our listeners?

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Yeah, hi Claire. Hi everyone. I'm Kat Mann. I'm a veterinary investigation officer down in Star Cross, which is near Exeter. So my day-to-day work is doing post-mortems on all sorts of animals, primarily livestock, but also, like in this case, on wildlife. My background's quite varied. I haven't got the sort of traditional farm vet background that a lot of our VIOs have. I have got a master's in conservation medicine and a keen interest in wildlife, but I've also worked in mixed practice. I've also worked as a zoo vet, which is what really sparked my interest for pathology. I've worked on a remote island in the South Atlantic as one of our beautiful overseas territories. And then yeah, I've worked in APHA for a long, long time, over 10 years now, in various roles, ranging from wildlife expert group lead to VIO, and also briefly in what we call the field team, field delivery, which works on things like notifiables and welfare cases.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

Brilliant. I'm really excited to pick your mind on this case, Kat, and on this issue, because there's such a strong wildlife element to it. And also because you've worked as a field APHA vet, you understand the outbreak and notifiable disease element of the investigation as well, which is absolutely key to our discussions today. And you've also been part of initiatives which have involved APHA actually training rangers to collect the samples for testing in these kind of kinds of incidents. So yeah, absolutely the perfect person for this discussion.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

Yeah, and I think it's really important to remember that we're only as good as our network and the people that we can lean on and reach out to when we have concerns or questions or issues. And very, very grateful for Forestry England colleagues and field team colleagues, and in this case we'll get to it, but Food Standard Agency colleagues as well, because you know, when you work together, that's really when you're going to get the best result.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

Absolutely great point. So, Kat, let's get into it. Um, can you tell us about how this case came about?

SPEAKER_00 2:49

Yeah, so in April 2026, um, a member of the public reported that they'd found two dead Ferrowell boar in close proximity in the Forest of Dean in England. Um, and they then went to inform the Forestry England Rangers who subsequently got in touch with us, um, and that's how this set off this whole investigation. Obviously, a concern that we'd found two boar close together at a similar point in time. Obviously, we don't know exactly when they died, but chances are if they're in the same state of autolysis, it's not far between, and obviously it set off some alarm bells um for African swine fever or classical swine fever.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

Right, and that's because both African and classical swine fever, which are both notifiable diseases which are not present in the UK, can present with um pigs that are found dead. And these are two diseases that could cause devastating consequences if introduced to the UK, um, particularly in our British pig sectors. And just to explain what a notifiable animal disease is, so these are diseases for which suspicion must be reported immediately to APHA, and that's suspicion by the keeper, by the vet, or or anyone else. And we'll put in the show notes exactly how how to do that. And so for our listeners that aren't familiar with the forest of Dean, then, could you set the scene for us there?

SPEAKER_00 4:13

There is a feral wild boar population in the forest of Dean. We estimate there's around 500 um wild boar in the forest at the moment, but obviously that number varies greatly around the reproductive season and and also around any kind of control that the rangers are are undertaking. But it's also a really interesting area, the Forest of Dean, because it's it's full of tourists. There's lots of people visiting this beautiful area every day.

SPEAKER_01 4:38

Right, and therefore the interface between people and wildlife in the forest could present risk for the introduction of exotic natival disease, for example, from visitors consuming meat products that might have come from overseas in the forest and not disposing of those properly. Now, there are lots of measures in place to try to reduce that risk, such as lots of signs to inform people in the forest of of these risks and the need to dispose of food in the bins that are provided, and also laws that prevent export of products that could be contaminated with common fibro diseases that we're worried about entering through these channels, and we'll talk about some of those mitigations later and what you as listeners can do to help. But this pathway really means that the Forest of Green and other areas of Great Britain where there are known populations of wild boar are closely monitored and are considered a kind of priority for surveillance, particularly for diseases like African swine fever and classical swine fever. So before we go back to our case, Ben Cat, could I just pick up on one thing? Could you explain why you're referring to these animals as feral wild boar?

SPEAKER_00 5:44

Yeah, so they they although they act and live as wild animals in England and and Wales and Scotland, they are actually descendants of farmed wild boar that have either escaped or been illegally released in either the 1990s and and 2000s. So we're we're really aware that either there and they act as wildlife, they they aren't controlled, they haven't got owners, but they pose a particular risk to um domestic pigs and farmed pigs because, of course, they don't stay in their little confined areas, they can roam freely and they can carry disease. And we know, unfortunately, from the experience of our colleagues on the continent, that wild boar can be a really important reservoir for ASF and for maintaining that disease and preventing effective eradication. It's a real challenge. So we we know that this is a worry and a concern for us that we need to monitor going forward.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

That's a really great background as to why this surveillance is so important. So to give our listeners then a bit of general information around the surveillance that's in place for feral wild boar found dead in Great Britain. Um so rangers working in the Forest of Dean, the Kent Sussex border, as well as the Scottish Highlands, have actually been trained by APHA to collect samples from individual wild boar found dead or euthanased due to ill health. And these are tested for African spine fever at the Purbright Institute. And these activities are really importantly supported by Forestry England and also Nature Scotland and Forestry and Land Scotland. And I know that members of the public can actually uh submit found dead world animals to us when there isn't a specific reason to suspect notifiable disease, so unlike in this case. And that's part of the rumour of the wildlife expert group. So I was wondering, Kat, if you could um give us a bit more information on that.

SPEAKER_00 7:35

Yes, so I think um we're very well known for our livestock work at the Veterinary Investigation Centres at APHA, maybe less well known for what we call the diseases of wildlife scheme. Um this is a scheme that is funded by DEFRA where we perform post-mortem examinations and laboratory testing where appropriate on submitted wildlife. The beauty of it is anyone can submit to us. So any member of the public, any veteran, any farmer, if you find what we call an interesting case of dead wildlife, so this would be, for example, not a road traffic accident or not a suspected road traffic accident, we don't tend to want them, or not a one-off. But if you found, for example, repeatedly dead rabbits in your field and there was no obvious reason why they had died, give your veterinary investigation centre a ring and see if you could submit them. We can do lots of surveillance on these carcasses, which is really important. And the best way to do that is by phoning your local centre, which you can find online, which we'll link in the show notes as well, so that you can find it. For birds, it's a bit easier because we have an online reporting platform. If you you can search for it under Dead Wild Birds, and it should pop up, and then actually it'll be collected and sorted out for you as well. So it's very, very low input on the submitter's end, and you get a report and everything at the end explaining what's happened. If you want to, you don't have to, but you can um if you submit your email address. And it's really important that we're looking at wildlife in particular for surveillance because one health is such an important angle to our work. We're all connected, the environment, wild animals, domestic animals, and ourselves humans, and that those links are really, really key. These are reservoir hosts, potentially for some diseases that affect our livestock. You know, we're talking here obviously about ASF. We know in the continent that's been a huge issue. But also for new and emerging threats, a lot of new and emerging threats in recent years have come from wildlife, and that's a really key part of the work that we do that we we're often maybe a bit quieter about, but it is there. And and please do submit. Thank you, Kat. And that's free to the submitter, isn't it? Completely free, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:39

Okay, I think we should get back to our case. Now the reason that this case is a little bit different is because two world boar was found together in the same place, and and when this happens, these are reported for official APHA investigation, and these are sampled uh as an emergency as suspect spine fevers, and then this is obviously what has occurred in this recent case. So, Kat, could you speak a bit more to this and and why why that difference existed in this case?

SPEAKER_00 10:11

Yeah, so normally when our rangers go out and sample found dead wild boar, they're finding one. You know, they've gone on their patrols and they've found one dead wild boar, they're sampling them and sending them off without delay, of course, to Perbrite, but there's no urgency because it's just our routine surveillance screening, they'll be done, you know, done promptly, but not with any real cause for alarm. But because we'd found two in close proximity at a similar period of time, this did set off some alarm bells, and therefore we wanted to progress the testing much quicker than we normally would. And so we actually had the results within under 30 hours, um, which allowed the chief etching officer to um to negate disease, which I think is really important. You know, we have the opportunity when there is serious concern to sort of reduce the timeline needed to get to get a result. It also means we can get the bodies in if they're still suitable for PM without any significant delay.

SPEAKER_01 11:01

Yeah, so in this case, those carcasses were unfortunately too decomposed to be able to get those in for diagnostic investigation. But one thing that we often like to do is have samples and or complete a diagnostic investigation in cases where notifiable disease has been ruled out to try to understand what was the cause of those clinical signs in the first place that raised that clinical suspicion. And we call that the these differential diagnoses of negative report based investigations, so DDNLC investigations. And those fulfill a few aims. So one, to get a diagnosis for the clinical problem, which is important either for the farmer or for the keeper or in this case for wildlife, and then two, so that we can understand what diseases might look like notifiable diseases, both because those could represent a potential new or re-emerging threat, and also because knowledge of what can appear like a notifiable disease then informs our processes around those notifiable diseases themselves.

SPEAKER_00 12:04

Yeah, it's a really important point because there are differentials and we need to work with those differentials all the time, but we particularly need to be able to spot the notifiable diseases quickly and promptly. So the more that we know how they look like, any path mnemonic signs, any signs which might be confounded with other diseases, uh are real flags that can can really be to our advantage if we know what they are. Cool.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

And so unfortunately that wasn't possible in this case, but you have had an earlier instance, so back in 2021, where you were able to complete the this DDNRC, so this differential diagnosis of the gate of report case investigations on a um separate number of cell wild boar that have been found dead in the forest.

SPEAKER_00 12:46

Yes, very interesting um mortality event that we were we were informed of by again the Forestry England colleagues, so thank you to the Rangers and for their work they do patrolling the forests. But yes, we had this odd spike in mortality in the forest D in spring of 2021, where we had within about a three-month period, I think it was 12 in total, found dead wild boar in quite a small area. So obviously they have their home ranges, but this was quite a discrete area. And again, it set off some alarm bells because why have they died? Why is there this little cluster?

SPEAKER_01 13:17

Well, okay, I'm sure everyone was absolutely itching to uh understand what was going on here then. So can you talk us through your investigation in these cluster of cases? I know that um African swine fever and classical swine fever were negated in all of these, and for some of these, um, there was a specific reason to be suspicious of the swine fevers, and therefore that testing was done as in our 2026 case on that emergency basis as a as a report case. Um, and then for some of them there wasn't a specific reason for suspicion, so they were treated like our normal um wild boar that are that are found dead.

SPEAKER_00 13:56

That's right, yes, absolutely. And then depending on what we found at post-mortem, would also dictate what we tested for. I think it's really important here as well to flag that wild boar in the forested dean do go into the food chain and the rangers do you know shoot wild boar that are fit and healthy, I I hate them to add.

SPEAKER_01 14:15

Yeah, so they're not the ones that are found dead, not the ones that are found dead, absolutely. These are specifically ones that are um yeah, fit and healthy and then short for human consumption.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

Yes, and it's to help control the population size as well. So it's it it works all round and it's not a waste of a carcass either. But of course, we had this spike of deaths. We know that some of these are going into the food chain. We need to be sure that the food is safe to eat. We don't we don't we didn't know at this point what the cause of the mass mortality event was, um, whether it was the beginning of something much bigger or not. Um that's also you never know at the beginning, do you, whether it's going to be, you know, a huge event or just a small one, like it was in this case. But so when we first got some several bodies in, we did do toxicological testing um alongside Food Standard Agency colleagues as well, because we wanted to be sure that we weren't dealing with something like lead, for example, which can cause sudden death as well, and to make sure that food that you know the again forestry rangers were retaining because they were concerned, and until we had negative results, and that that food was was safe.

SPEAKER_01 15:14

Okay, so we know that uh the swine fevers were ruled out, toxicological incident was ruled out, uh, and and also I know that you tested for some other notifiable diseases uh where there might have been suspicion. So, for example, I know someone tested for Adrax, so so that was ruled out. Um, can you tell us what you did find then?

SPEAKER_00 15:35

Well it was slightly disappointing that we didn't get one key diagnosis that would explain them all, but I'm wondering. Very that would be worrying um for for the population, for domestic pigs, and so really important investigation.

SPEAKER_01 15:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

Absolutely. Sometimes it's just as important to get a negative result. We forget that sometimes, you know. We did test for a lot of things like swine influenza as well, for example, because we had some gastric ulcers in some of these cases. Um I think so with the thought that they that could possibly be underlined by a viral incident. Correct? Yeah, so we did test for an array of viruses. It's important to know that these were negative. You know, that's that's good to know for local pig farmers as well, and also for that population level management of the wild boar. So, although we did get negative results for a lot of the diseases we looked for, we also got a huge amount of knowledge from that.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:26

You know, that's the flip side of the coin. But yes, we had all sorts of really interesting diagnoses. We did get some Mycobacterium bovists, so TB lesions in a few, which we were then able to spoligotype and see how they might tie in with livestock. We also got some reproductive issues, which I wasn't expecting. So we had this was obviously around the reproductive season, um, so not unexpected, but we had retained fetuses, we had a mathritis, so some really interesting pathology. We had lungworm lesions and pneumonia in some that were incidental, and others it was more serious, and we had some chronic pneumonias that ended up countering pastorella from them as well. So all sorts of really interesting things, but not one specific diagnosis, which is always disappointing as a pathologist. It's lovely when you can tie it all up in a bow, but you are right there. Of course, it was great that we didn't actually find something awful and you know, dangerous or that could spread further or cause a much bigger event. And I think it's really important also to stress at this point that this was a really isolated incident, which we still haven't really understood why it happened, you know, in spring of 2021. We haven't had further spikes in mortality during the spring. Um, there was no increase in you know observer bias, there was no additional sampling that was done that year, there weren't additional ranges, there weren't extra paths trodden. We don't actually know what caused this spike, which is interesting. And obviously, we've maintained those networks so that we do check in with the forestry rangers regularly to say, hey, we haven't heard from you. Hoping that's good news. But yeah, in case we have missed something, how's it going? What are things like on the ground? Do you have anything for us?

SPEAKER_01 18:02

And I guess the uh enthusiasm to investigate these cases has only helped those positive relationships going forward. So can I probe you on some of those diagnoses then? So I found that diagnosis of mitritis with uh retained fetuses quite interesting because I because that would be something that hopefully we'd not see on a in a in a domestic cell, because um hopefully that would have been detected and and something done about that. And and so I guess it's interesting looking at the kinds of diseases that um the the difference in diseases that you might see in wildlife where that kind of human intervention isn't possible versus what what you might see in domestic pigs.

SPEAKER_00 18:41

It was very likely that she died as a result of the metritis, it was very severe and extensive, but that would have happened outside of a mortality event as well, presumably. So again, it was weird that it had that sort of temporality around it and the location around it, you know, they were all in the same location. But again, you know, a shout out to our surveillance work on notifiables and reportable diseases. Because we found a metritis and a retained fetus, that was a flag for us to do our routine Brucella screening that we do, so respective cultures on abortions and stillborn submissions. Obviously, again, we don't really talk about it and we don't publish those results because you can presume they're negative, and if they were to be positive, everyone would hear about it. Um, but there's a lot of work that we do in the background day to day that maybe people aren't aware of. So, yeah, we tested these for Brucella as well, as well as anthrax that you've already mentioned, um, as well as ASF and CSF.

SPEAKER_01 19:32

Yeah, and that really raises how these submissions are such a great opportunity to understand what's going on in these populations. And although there should be really good separation between these feral wild boar populations and our domestic pig herds, it's still um really important and really helpful to understand uh the kinds of diseases that that and the kinds of pathogens that we can detect in these animals.

SPEAKER_00 19:56

I mean that that's the important bit really. That's the important message I think for you know pig farmers in particular with regards to the the feral wild boar, but also livestock farmers generally, is that you know, there is wildlife about, which is great. And um, I'm sure we can all appreciate the value of of seeing wildlife in their in their natural habitat, but there is an intrinsic risk that disease can spread both ways, and you know, it's in the farmers' best interest to maintain excellent biosecurity, you know, to prevent any incursion of disease into their herds or flock. It's a really good reminder that these are these are unmanaged animals that may be carrying something novel or or emerging, or be a reservoir that doesn't have any clinical disease in that species. So something that we're always looking out for is these are new and emerging threats. We know wildlife is a potential source of these and potentially a change in species distribution as well.

SPEAKER_01 20:43

Yeah, and I guess the flip side to that is that if notifiable disease like African swine fever, classical swine fever, and also foot and mouth disease were to be found in feral wild boar in this country, even if it were to be completely confined to the world population only and never entered the domestic herd, the trade and therefore many of the economic repercussions, particularly initially, would be the same as if it were detected in the domestic pig population, so uh or the domestic livestock population for for mouth disease. So I think that reinforces even further the need to prevent these animals, so so these worldfell boar from coming into contact with exotic notifiable disease pathogens. And that then leads us on to thinking about what we can do to try to prevent that happening, and and much of that is around preventing these animals from having access to food which could be contaminated with these pathogens. So, can you speak a bit more as to why that's a worry to us, particularly for African swine fever, which has obviously caused so many devastating outbreaks in Europe and elsewhere in recent years?

SPEAKER_00 21:55

I mean, just going back to basics again, you know, we shouldn't be feeding livestock. Of any form and and ideally wildlife either, any kind of kitchen scraps or waste. Um, that's a really important fundamental message here um for biosecurity. Just because the numbers are quite surprising, I'm just going to give you the times for virus survival in different types of meat because it is surprisingly long. Um this is for this for African swine fever. Yeah, so in meat and offal, it's 105 days. In salted meats, it's 182 days. In dried meats and skin, it's 300 days, and in frozen meat, it's a thousand days. So, you know, you you wouldn't necessarily think that meat that you've popped in your freezer, possibly, you know, two, three years ago, could still be carrying the virus. And and the big risk is, of course, meat coming from a country that has got ASF in its pigs or wild boar, because obviously we we do eat boar meat as well, wild boar meat, coming into the country and then maybe not thinking about the repercussions of just chucking that sandwich out the window um as they drive past a pig farm.

SPEAKER_01 22:56

Or as they go for a picnic in an area that is populated by wild boar. And so there I I guess it's important to note that exporting pig meat from an area infected with African swine fever would be illegal. And there are also other measures in place to prevent meat that could be infected with an exotic notifiable disease from entering the UK. So actually, currently there's a ban in place for all personal imports of products of ruminant and porcine origin for travellers coming to Great Britain from countries in the European Union. And this ban was put in place following previous outbreaks of foot and mouth disease virus that occurred in Germany, Hungary and Slovakia in 2025. And I think that captures that it's not just African swine fever that we need to be worried about, we need to be on the lookout for um other diseases like foot and mouth disease virus as well. And there it's important also to rate awareness. So hopefully you'll have seen um posters at the airports and and other ports around what is uh legal or not to bring in to the country. And then uh public visiting areas inhabited with feral or wild boar absolutely must not feed these animals and must dispose of food waste appropriately, and this is the case for any livestock species. And so hopefully that gives some of the measures. Kat, do you think there are any other points that are important for our listeners to be aware of?

SPEAKER_00 24:25

I think one really interesting one as a pathologist is that with ASF we always focus a lot on the clinical signs and the postmortem findings we might have, particularly the blotchy skin. The blotchy skin on the ears, the blotchy skin on the ventrum and the over the abdomen. And I think one point that maybe gets lost sometimes is that we're talking about domestic pigs that are generally nice and pink, and it's very obvious when they go blotchy. Now, wild boar are not, they are you know dark skinned, they are quite fairy, lots of hair. We're often getting them in various states of decay. So that really obvious clinical sign may be in a domestic animal where you've also got a history potentially of a fever, lack of appetite, lethargy, malaise. We don't have any of that history when we get these carcasses in.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

That's a really good point and reinforces the value of the surveillance specifically for feral wild boar. So could you go through then the clinical presentations in domestic pigs that could lead to either a vet, a keeper, or just someone interacting with pigs to be suspicious of the swine fevers and therefore need to report that suspicion to APHA?

SPEAKER_00 25:34

One of the taglines is it's in the name African swine fever. They do tend to develop a high fever, very high fever. And then obviously you've got all those clinical syndromes that are associated with that loss of appetite, malaise, lethargy, potentially shivering, huddling up to each other to keep warm and inverted commas when obviously they're too hot. Those are really key. I alluded to the reddening of the skin, particularly ventrally and of the ears, those are really classic symptoms for both African and classical swine fever, um, which may be harder, like I said, in in Wild War to see, but they're they're really sort of obvious to us. What I would add is because of the type of virus that it is, it can present peracutely. So you might just have sudden deaths.

SPEAKER_01 26:19

Right. So if a keeper notes an increase in mortality or unusual mortality, it's really important that they give their vet a call, and then their vet is really is very welcome to call us um and chat through cases and chat through their level of suspicion to absolutely ensure that they'll they're fulfilling that legal obligation, which is to report suspicion of notifiable disease.

SPEAKER_00 26:43

So it's better to be precautionary in these situations and to make sure that you know you haven't got a notifiable disease on your premises that could have really serious repercussions for you and your neighbours and and and the country.

SPEAKER_01 26:54

Yeah, and s something that I think we need to be really conscious of is that actually African time bever can spread quite slowly through the herd. So actually could just start with one or two infected and and and fall dead or sick pigs and then take time to move to the rest of the herd. So actually, just because you only have one or two deaths in the herd, that that doesn't mean that you shouldn't be suspicious, because actually you could you could still be in that period where where only one or two are infected and and spread is is yet to happen. And I also think that's particularly important for small holdings where you might actually only have one or two pigs, and so you're less able to rely on kind of clinical signs in the rest of the herd to to kind of raise or lower your index of suspicion around that. So, yeah, really important for uh that's working with pig keepers and the pig keepers themselves to to understand that the kind of signs to look out for, as you say, carry a thermometer. I guess also really important to touch on that we're constantly looking at new ways that we can do surveillance, learning from the experiences of of other countries, so where um, as you say, this parakeet presentation of of just pigs being found dead could maybe not raise suspicions as as quickly as as otherwise. So it's important to have other surveillance mechanisms in place to detect those.

SPEAKER_00 28:18

Yeah, and I think really the aim of the game is to detect it as early as possible. And like you mentioned, it that's a really, really important point is that you know the amount of virus in the environment takes time to ramp up. So initially you might have one or two cases, but then as as the virus can spread because you've had these cases into the rest of the herd, your numbers might amplify. But really, what we want to get is those first few cases because that's you know when we can take the best action and limit spread as much as possible. And again, a shout out to biosecurity. If you've got good biosecurity measures on your farm, you're much less likely to have an incursion. But also, if you were to unfortunately get ASF and not realise, it's much less likely also to spread off your farm onto other other farms, other unit as well. So, you know, things like fencing is really important, footwear, cleaning and disinfection appropriately, changing clothing if you're going to different units, um, particularly as a vet as well, being pig-free if you need to be for high health units, etc. This is really where you're going to help prevent a a national emergency.

SPEAKER_01 29:16

Yeah, and and I'd say, yeah, I think that biosecurity also extends to something that we talked about at length, which is ensuring uh um lack of access to meat-to-meat products or kitchen scraps. Um and um on the biosecurity note, there's a huge amount of resources, um, some of which we'll we'll flag in the show notes produced by AHDB and lots of other partners around that. And we'll also pop in the show notes a really nice picture guide around the clinical signs for African swine fever and also the um post-mortem examination common findings. Should also say whenever we are suspicious of African swine fever, we also test for classical swine fever because those two are impossible to distinguish clinically. And then perhaps we just note some of the post-mortem examination findings as well. Kat, I feel like you are um definitely best placed to do this as the VIO in the room.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

Um yeah, I mean, things that would make our blood run cold include um hugely enlarged spleens, um, hemorrhagic lymph nodes, obviously that blotchy skin that I've already mentioned, particularly the ears and the ventral abdominal skin. Duck egg kidneys, uh, another really sort of classic sign. Spotty spotty, yeah, that's right. So like almost hemorrhagic pinpoint spots all over the the kidney.

SPEAKER_01 30:36

And actually, there we need to mention that it's important to take off capsule to be able to see that that duck air kidney, because sometimes with the capsule still on, you can't see it.

SPEAKER_00 30:45

On every PM we do, that's just routine. Um, but like you said, that we've got a really nice picture guide um that we'll put in the show notes, which has got some fantastic photos of the pathology and of clinically ill animals, which we've done in collaboration with the Pearl Bright Institute. So definitely worth having a look, just so that you can f familiarise yourself with hopefully something you'll never see. But um it's always good to know what to look out for um either way. And again, if you've got any concerns at all at post-mortem, do give the team a call on the number that we'll again we'll put it put down below just to talk it through, even if it's just for peace of mind to talk to someone you don't want to be lying in bed at night thinking about possibly having this a case of AFF.

SPEAKER_01 31:23

And even in yeah, yeah, definitely important to know the clinical signs, definitely important to know the personal examination signs, but in those paracute cases there may be few personal semination signs. So um, yeah, never the wrong thing to to give APHA a call and and talk about the possibility and and and whether whether or not there is reason to be suspicion, and our veterinary investigation centres are also here to help you do that as well. So I hope all of us have found hearing about how APHA investigated uh suspect notifiable disease in in this case, and and I hope it's been helpful to understand more about the processes that are in place to keep animals safe in the UK, both in terms of routine surveillance as well as responding to these alerts from people in contact with animals. We hope that you can spread the word on some of these steps because we need everyone to help this effort. Um, we need everyone to ensure that illegal animal products don't enter Great Britain. We we need everyone to ensure that animals don't come into contact with material that could put their men or farm animal sectors at risk. And we also need you to understand what clinical science and look for uh to to make sure that you know when to report suspect notifiable disease.

SPEAKER_00 32:30

So, Kat, have you got anything to add? If you were interested in finding out more about that mortality event investigation that we carried out in 2021, we'll pop the report that we put in the vet record in the show notes as well. So you can always read that. Um, I would certainly recommend looking at the um the picture guide as well, like Claire said. It's it's a really good reference um for you to have. And yeah, feel free to reach out to your local Bentley Investigation Centre. We're always happy to hear about your interesting cases um or for you to submit something to us. We're always happy to chat through complicated or concerning issues. Um and also don't be scared to phone the Ned Farber Disease helpline. It can be intimidating, but hopefully you'll feel supported and get to the bottom of whatever might be going on.

SPEAKER_01 33:13

Oh, I totally agree. The the thought of it can be intimidating, yeah. And I actually in practice a report case for African Time Fever. Yeah, that was a bad day. Luckily negated, few yes, very quickly. But I uh felt very supported, and it was really nice just to be able to hand over this uh shocking thing that I'd turned up to with some very red blotchy dead pigs, uh, and and more than I was expected to turn up to that day, to someone who had much more experience of uh ruling these things in or out than I did. So um yeah, very much felt like passing the buck, but in in a nice way, and and we could all sleep well that evening, so that was good. Finally, thank you to everyone who worked with us on these cases and continues to work with us for these activities. So that includes members of the public, rangers, animal keepers and vets, as well as everyone at APHA and our partnering organisations like the Powerbright Institute and Natural England and um Forestry Scotland and many others. Thank you to you, our listeners, and thank you to Kat for joining us and for explaining these cases so well and explaining your um how how the many roles that you've you've had has has allowed you to gather this knowledge. We'd love to hear from our listeners to hear what you think about the podcast and what you'd like us to discuss in future episodes. So we'll see you next time.