How to Strengthen Wildlife Surveillance to Support Freedom From Disease: Example of ASF Surveillance in France, at the Border With an Infected Area

Abstract

Using a risk-based approach, the SAGIR network (dedicated to wildlife disease surveillance) had to strengthen surveillance activities after ASF was confirmed in Belgium in September 2018, very near the French border. Three new active dead wild boars search protocols supplemented opportunistic surveillance in Level III risk areas: patrols by volunteer hunters, professional systematic combing, and dog detection. Those protocols were targeted in terms of location and time and complemented each other. The main objectives of the designed surveillance system were (i) to assure early detection in case of introduction of the disease and (ii) to support the free status of the zone. Compiling the surveillance effort was thus a necessity to assure authorities and producer representatives that the sometimes low number of carcasses detected was not a consequence of no surveillance activities. The human involvement in implementing those activities was significant: more than 1000 8-h days just for the time spent in the field on active search activities. We calculated a specific indicator to enable a comparison of the surveillance results from different zones, including non-infected Belgian zones with strengthened surveillance activities. This was a first step in the evaluation of the efficacy of our surveillance activities in a WB population. Field experiments and modelling dead WB detection probability are planned to supplement this evaluation. Belgium regained its ASF-free status in November 2020, and ASF was not detected in France in either the WB or domestic pig populations.

Keywords: African swine fever; cadaver detection dogs; freedom from animal disease; surveillance; wild species.