New Wild Boar Capture Team Deployed in Border Areas... Strengthening ASF Prevention Measures

Strengthening ASF Quarantine Management in 10 Cities and Counties

The Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters for African Swine Fever (ASF) announced on the 11th that it will strengthen quarantine management to prevent the spread of ASF to pig farms following the recent consecutive outbreaks in border areas.

First, the headquarters will enhance quarantine management, focusing on 10 cities and counties in border areas where the risk of outbreaks is high, to block the transmission of ASF to farmed pigs due to contamination sources entering farms amid increased spring farming activities, rising numbers of mountain visitors, and a surge in wild boar populations.

To this end, the Ministry of Environment will cooperate with military units to add dedicated search personnel within the Civilian Control Line (Min Tong Seon) to intensively search for and remove wild boar carcasses, and will also conduct searches using carcass detection dogs (two teams). Through these efforts, the wild boar population density will be managed from 1.05 per km² (as of the end of 2022) to 0.7 per km².

For wild boar capture, thermal imaging drone footage and location information within and outside the Civilian Control Line will be provided to local government capture teams to support trapping efforts. In areas where ASF-infected wild boars have not been found, new permanent capture teams will be deployed to capture wild boars.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, in cooperation with the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, will form a central joint inspection team to thoroughly verify quarantine compliance in the relevant cities and counties and will also address difficulties faced by local government quarantine activities.

Separately, the Animal and Plant Quarantine Agency and local governments (Incheon, Gyeonggi, Gangwon) will form their own inspection teams to directly check the quarantine management status of pig farms on site, including compliance with the farm’s secondary disinfection and other quarantine rules. Strict measures such as fines or prosecutions will be taken against confirmed violations.

Additionally, for pig farms in the 10 border cities and counties, the number of regular tests will be significantly increased to quickly identify ASF virus infections and implement proactive quarantine measures.

Intensive disinfection of farms and surrounding areas will also be conducted. The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs plans to expand disinfection sections on roads within the Civilian Control Line, where wild boars may move, from 16 to 50 locations to proactively disinfect and remove contamination sources. On roads with heavy livestock and manure transport traffic within the 10 cities and counties (such as National Road 43), three disinfection vehicles will be separately deployed for focused disinfection.

Ahn Yong-deok, Director of the Quarantine Policy Bureau at the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, urged, "Early detection and rapid response are crucial to preventing the spread of livestock infectious diseases, so farms should report immediately to livestock quarantine authorities if suspicious symptoms are observed." He also requested, "Pig farms should maintain quarantine and disinfection facilities and strictly follow basic quarantine rules such as disinfecting farms and barns and changing boots."