The programme focuses on key preventive measures which include cleansing and disinfection of vehicles, surveillance and laboratory testing, awareness campaigns and even the use of wild boar repellents and preventive early slaughter of pigs in risk backyard farms, in the spirit that "prevention is better than cure".

Recent outbreaks of this disease in Russia and Belarus constitute a threat to the EU pig holdings.

ASF could enter the EU through illegal introduction of pig products, such as pork, via contaminated livestock vehicles or the migration of infected wild boar.

This infectious disease is usually fatal and no vaccine exists to combat this virus. Its spread into the EU would cause important losses to the pig sector and disrupt the internal market and exports for live pigs and porcine products.