Project paper : African swine fever eradication

The project will be implemented by the GODR"s Secretariat of State for Agriculture and will include four activities: mass education, eradication, compensation, and repopulation. Mass education will involve the use of public mass media, to assure consumers of the safety of inspected pork and of GODR activities regarding ASF. In addition, swine producers will be encouraged to market healthy pigs immediately and to adapt measures to stop ASF from infecting their stock. Veterinary and medicial personnel will be updated and community leaders" efforts will be encouraged. ASF eradication activities will have five components. First, seven epidemiologists, a livestock epidemiologist, an expert on wild pigs, and an entomologist, will investigate suspicious and reported outbreaks of ASF (detection stage). Depopulation/decontamination activities will follow. As ASR areas are confirmed, all exposed and infected swine will be destroyed and local farmland will be disinfected. To carry out this process, 86 brigades will be created and divided into seven regions, each headed by a veterinary or agricultural technician. These crews will monitor the areas, prohibiting pigs from entering for three months. Healthy pigs will then be placed in these areas and observed; if they are later found to be diseased, decontaimination processes will commence. Swine movements and pork products will be monitored at 50 control posts, including four border posts, to screen and disinfect products entering the country from Haiti. Also, four airports and 12 seaports will be equipped with incinerators for disposing confiscated commodities. Monetary compensation will be provided through the GODR Agricultural Bank as an incentive to farmers for reporting ASF areas, sacrificing their diseased pigs, and marketing their healthy stock. Plans for swine repopulation will be developed for reintroducing swine into disinfected areas. Possibly 10,000 healthy sentinel pigs will be imported to facilitate this task.