Spanish military sets up ‘exclusion zone’ to contain African swine fever — that may have spread from a sandwich
BELLATERRA, Spain — Spain has deployed its military to help contain an outbreak of African swine fever near Barcelona, an urgent step to safeguard the nation’s multi-billion-euro pork export industry.
Authorities believe the virus may have entered the country after a wild boar consumed contaminated food—possibly something as simple as a discarded sandwich brought in from abroad.
Two wild boar found dead in Bellaterra tested positive for the disease on Friday, prompting officials to establish a 3.7-mile exclusion zone on the far side of the Collserola mountain range. Over the weekend, 300 Catalan police officers and rural agents were sent to the area. On Monday, they were joined by 117 members of Spain’s Military Emergency Unit, who are using drones to identify and remove potentially infected animals.
“The most likely scenario is that contaminated cold cuts or a sandwich ended up in a bin, a wild boar ate it, and became infected,” Catalonia’s agriculture minister Oscar Ordeig said in a local radio interview Monday.
African swine fever does not affect humans, but it spreads quickly among pigs and wild boar, posing a serious threat to Spain—one of the world’s leading pork exporters.
The infected zone lies near the AP-7 highway, a major transport corridor connecting Spain and France. Eight additional suspected cases are under investigation, with more likely, regional officials warned. Ordeig later noted that the virus was probably introduced through human activity elsewhere in Europe, as no infected boar have been found in other parts of Catalonia or in neighboring France.
A spokesperson for the European Commission said it would not comment on the source of the outbreak until genetic sequencing tests are complete. An EU veterinary team is scheduled to visit the region this week to assess the situation, advise authorities, and prepare a report with recommendations.
Spain’s agriculture minister Luis Planas said Saturday that roughly one-third of the country’s pork export certificates have been suspended because of the outbreak, although no farms have tested positive. Pork producers within a 12.4-mile radius of the initial detection site are now subject to operating and sales restrictions.
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