{"id":493679,"date":"2025-12-05T22:05:55","date_gmt":"2025-12-06T02:05:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.net\/en\/uncategorized\/agriculture-will-investigate-whether-the-african-swine-fever-virus-from-catalonia-comes-from-a-laboratory\/"},"modified":"2025-12-05T22:05:55","modified_gmt":"2025-12-06T02:05:55","slug":"agriculture-will-investigate-whether-the-african-swine-fever-virus-from-catalonia-comes-from-a-laboratory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/uncategorized\/agriculture-will-investigate-whether-the-african-swine-fever-virus-from-catalonia-comes-from-a-laboratory\/","title":{"rendered":"Agriculture will investigate whether the African swine fever virus from Catalonia comes from a laboratory"},"content":{"rendered":"Barcelona.<\/strong>– The Nature Protection Service (Seprona) of the Civil Guard and the Mossos d’Esquadra will jointly investigate the origin of the African swine fever (ASF) virus detected in 13 wild boars found dead in the vicinity of the Collserola natural park (Barcelona), after a report indicates the possibility that the strain comes from a laboratory.\n\nThe Animal Health Research Center (CISA-INIA), a European Union reference laboratory located in Valdeolmos (Madrid), has detailed that the genome of the detected virus is similar to that of the pathogen that circulated in Georgia in 2007, a strain that is usually used in experimental studies and in the evaluation of vaccines.\n\nThe person responsible for the outbreak detected in Cerdanyola del Vall\u00e8s does not match, however, the strains currently circulating in the EU member states.\n\nThe report suggests that the origin of the virus may not be in animals or animal products from any of the countries where the infection is currently present, as has been thought until now.\n\nFor all these reasons, the General Directorate of Health of Agri-food Production and Animal Welfare has asked the Seprona to investigate the origin of the outbreak, while the Catalan Minister of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Food, \u00d2scar Ordeig, has announced that the Mossos will also analyze the origin of the virus.\n\nFaced with this situation, the Mossos, through their Environmental Division, and the Guardia Civil, through Seprona, have created a joint team to investigate the origin of the outbreak, according to sources from the police informed EFE.\n\n\n

Focus on a nearby laboratory<\/h2>\n\n\nThe discovery has put the IRTA-CReSA, an animal health laboratory located on the Campus of the Autonomous University of Barcelona, in Bellaterra, in the spotlight, just one kilometer from where the first dead wild boar specimens appeared a few days ago.\n\nVarious IRTA-CReSA officials have defended this week, in different interviews in the media, the center’s actions and the impossibility of the virus having come from there, since the strict biosecurity measures that are applied turn the facilities into a bunker.\n\nThe center also ensures that all samples used in the laboratory are destroyed to ensure that no trace remains and to avoid incidents.\n\n\n

High Biocontainment Laboratory<\/h2>\n\n\nThe IRTA-CReSA is one of the few laboratories in Spain that can work with such contagious viruses, thanks to a complex biocontainment system, essential for carrying out research with animals by manipulating highly infectious and airborne pathogens.\n\nA high biocontainment laboratory (level 3 out of 4) consists of strict control of people’s access: to enter, you have to take off all your clothes, enter naked through a double door and, once inside, dress in a jumpsuit and clogs; the same to leave, with the addition of a shower with two soapings.\n\nMaintaining negative pressures is also crucial, so that the air from a room where pathogens are handled does not escape when a door is opened, thus preventing their circulation, which is reinforced by a system of renewal and absolute double filtration of the air, with separate circuits for each laboratory room.\n\nExcept for essential personnel and equipment – which undergo meticulous disinfection processes – nothing leaves the unit, nor do the animals, which are sacrificed and, subsequently, their remains are treated: either they are incinerated or they go through an alkaline digester, an intense chemical and thermal treatment for their decomposition and decontamination.\n\n\n

Several open options<\/h2>\n\n\nThe Minister of Agriculture has emphasized that “the report is not conclusive” and leaves “several options open” without ruling out any of them.\n\nOrdeig has reported that there are no new cases beyond the 13 positive cases identified so far and has emphasized that the priority remains to maintain the “controlled focus”, so there are 1,000 troops deployed within a 20-kilometer radius of the ground zero, in Cerdanyola.\n\nWith the December bridge approaching, he has urged the population to adhere to the ban on accessing the natural environment in 91 municipalities integrated into the PPA risk zone, in force until December 13, and has warned that the authorities have the “records prepared to sanction” those who do not comply.\n\nThe personnel inspecting the area where the swine fever has been declared have found the bodies of two more dead wild boars in the last few hours, bringing the total to 52 animals that have died within the perimeter of the outbreak of this disease.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Barcelona.– The Nature Protection Service (Seprona) of the Civil Guard and the Mossos d’Esquadra will jointly investigate the origin of the African swine fever (ASF) virus detected in 13 wild boars found dead in the vicinity of the Collserola natural park (Barcelona), after a report indicates the possibility that the strain comes from a laboratory. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-493679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/phj1q1-24qz","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","dum_api":{"author_name":"Arelis Suero","author_image":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/cropped-cropped-Diseno-sin-titulo-41-96x96.jpg","categories_name":["Uncategorized"],"featured_media_url":null},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=493679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493679\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=493679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}