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Pigs are waiting in a trailer for transport to the slaughterhouse
Photo: Lars Klemmer / dpa
African swine fever (ASF) broke out in a pig farm in the Emsland district.
The national reference laboratory, the Friedrich-Loeffler Institute (FLI), confirmed the findings of the State Office for Consumer Protection and Food Safety, as announced by the Ministry of Agriculture in Hanover.
According to the ministry, it is the first case of the animal disease in Lower Saxony.
The animal disease was also detected in a pig farm in Brandenburg on Saturday.
"Unfortunately, it was only a matter of time before swine fever reached Lower Saxony," said Minister Barbara Otte-Kinast (CDU).
It was a "hard emotional blow" for the pig farmers in Lower Saxony.
The farm in the municipality of Emsbüren keeps 280 sows and around 1500 piglets.
The entire stock will be killed on Sunday.
Environmental organization calls for rethinking animal husbandry
Greenpeace called for a change in attitude: The mass killings that followed showed that the existing “pig system in Germany was structurally, economically and ethically at an end”.
"The massive concentration of far too many animals in a small space not only entails enormous animal welfare and environmental problems," wrote agricultural expert Martin Hofstetter.
Animal diseases could spread particularly quickly.
Nothing has been changed at the roots of the evil.
»We have to end the existing, highly specialized pig system that violates animal welfare and reduce animal husbandry quickly and drastically, especially in the intensive regions.«
The first case in Germany was confirmed in September 2020, in a wild boar in Brandenburg.
Since then, outbreaks have been found in Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Saxony - and in May for the first time in southern Germany.
In mid-July last year, swine fever spread to domestic pigs in livestock for the first time in Germany – again in Brandenburg.
ASF is a contagious viral disease in domestic and wild pigs that is almost always fatal and incurable.
There is no way to protect pigs with preventive vaccination.
The disease can be transmitted directly from animal to animal or indirectly by humans to other areas via contaminated objects such as clothing, shoes and food.
ASF is not contagious or dangerous to humans or other animal species.
tfb/dpa