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. 2025 Jan 17;15(1):2244.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-86690-9.

An update on active and passive surveillance for African swine fever in the Dominican Republic

Rachel A Schambow  1 , Nianet Carrasquillo  2 , Silvia Kreindel  2 , Andres M Perez  3
Affiliations

An update on active and passive surveillance for African swine fever in the Dominican Republic

Rachel A Schambow et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

African swine fever (ASF) is a viral, hemorrhagic disease of swine that is reportable to the World Organisation for Animal Health. Since 2007, ASF has been expanding globally and causing severe disruption to the global swine industry. In 2021, ASF was detected in the Dominican Republic, prompting an emergency response from local and international officials. Three years later, ASF is still present in the country despite control efforts. This study used data from January 2023 to March 2024 from government-mandated sampling of commercial farms, a newly initiated active surveillance program of backyard farms, and passive reports to provide a comprehensive descriptive assessment of ASF in the Dominican Republic. The cumulative incidence for each region was calculated, and the reproductive ratio (R0) was estimated using doubling time and time-dependent methods. ASF continues to be distributed throughout the Dominican Republic with lower cumulative incidence in central regions and R0 around 1. These results suggest that ASF in the country is reaching a stable state that does not resemble an epidemic situation. This may suggest the need to change from an approach of emergency response to one of sustained and progressive control, ultimately for the long-term goal of ASF eradication in the Dominican Republic.

Keywords: African swine fever; Dominican Republic; Epidemiology; Reproductive ratio; Surveillance; Swine.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests. Ethics declarations: ASF continues to be a regulated and reportable disease in the Dominican Republic. For data received for this analysis, ethical review and approval was not required because all live animal sampling procedures were performed by the Dominican Republic government (DIGEGA) as a part of its official and regular surveillance activities to control the spread of ASF. All live animal sampling was performed in accordance with international guidelines from WOAH for sampling and detection of ASF in live swine.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Number of African swine fever reports per week in the Dominican Republic from January 2023 to March 2024, considering all reports (black line), only active reports (red line), and only passive reports (blue line).
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Number of African swine fever reports in the Dominican Republic each week from January 2023 to March 2024, by region.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Weekly African swine fever positive rate of surveillance reports (black solid line) and weekly total reports (dashed red line) in the Dominican Republic from January 2023 to March 2024.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Cumulative incidence (%) for provinces in the Dominican Republic considering outbreaks of African swine fever from January 2023 to March 2024. Administrative regional boundaries are designated by black, bold lines. ArcGIS Pro version 3.2.2,.
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
Median doubling-time reproduction ratio estimates (black points) and 95% lower and upper limits of the probability interval (red points) for African swine fever outbreaks in the Dominican Republic from November 2022 to March 2024.
Fig. 6
Fig. 6
Median time-dependent reproduction ratio (Rt) estimates (blue line) and 95% lower and upper probability interval (gray shaded region) for African swine fever outbreaks in the Dominican Republic from November 2022 to March 2024. Red, dotted line indicates Rt=1.
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