Slaughtered pigs are thrown in a container in Germany in March 2006. Some 2,500 pigs are to be slaughtered next week after a new outbreak of swine fever was found in a natural park in eastern Romania, local veterinary authorities said Thursday.

"The slaughtering and incineration of the pigs will begin Monday," the head of the local veterinary authority Gicu Dragan told AFP.

The outbreak was discovered last week and confirmed by the Institute for Veterinary Diagnosis and Animal Health, Dragan said.

The pigs are partly wild and come from private farms located around the uninhabited park near Braila, he added.

Some 50,000 pigs were already slaughtered in August in three farms in western Timis county belonging to the US company Smithfield, after swine fever was discovered there.

Further Reading

- For more information on Swine Fever click here.