Ludek Broz: Out of Africa 2.0: Following African Swine Fever Between Domesticated Forestss and Wild Pork Markets

ABSTRACT: 

African Swine Fever (ASF) is a non-zoonotic, viral, porcine disease that has recently been shaking the world of pork production. In this talk I explore ASF epizootics beyond the farm by cross reading two instances in which it allegedly “jumped” between wild and domestic spaces. First, I closely read the original 1921 article that describes what would later be called ASF virus moving from warthog to settlers’ pigs via soft tick. Second, I analyze what veterinary epidemiologists titled the fourth epidemiological cycle of ASF which developed post 2007 in Eurasia and involves Eurasian wild boar. Focusing on the case of Czechia and its handling of ASF outbreaks in wild boar populations I will argue that the idea of ASF jumping from wild to domestic, from domestic to wild and back again is at closer look misleading, because in the porcine domestic-wild continuum there is hardly a place ‘beyond the…