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. 2025 May 19;23(5):e9436.
doi: 10.2903/j.efsa.2025.9436. eCollection 2025 May.

Epidemiological analysis of African swine fever in the European Union during 2024

European Food Safety Authority (EFSA); Karl Ståhl, Anette Ella Boklund, Tomasz Podgórski, Timothée Vergne, Roxani Aminalragia-Giamini, José Cortiñas Abrahantes, Stella Papaleo, Lina Mur

Epidemiological analysis of African swine fever in the European Union during 2024

European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) et al. EFSA J. .

Abstract

During 2024, the number of EU Member States affected by African swine fever (ASF) decreased from 14 to 13, with Sweden regaining freedom and no new Member State becoming infected. ASF outbreaks in domestic pigs in the EU declined by 83% compared to 2023, primarily due to fewer outbreaks in Croatia and Romania, although Romania notified 66% of the 333 outbreaks in the EU. Most outbreaks (78%) occurred in establishments with fewer than 100 pigs. However, an increase in outbreaks in establishments with more than 100 pigs was observed in Italy and Poland. Like previous years, there was a clear seasonality for domestic pig outbreaks, with 51% of them notified between July and September. Most of the outbreaks in domestic pigs were detected through passive surveillance based on clinical suspicion (79.4%), while fewer outbreaks were detected through enhanced passive surveillance involving systematic testing of dead pigs (14.2%) and 6.4% through tracing contacts after outbreak detection. In wild boar, the number of outbreaks notified has remained stable since 2022 (between 7000 and 8000) with a less clear seasonality than for domestic pigs, and a winter peak observed only in Hungary, Italy, Poland and Slovakia. Overall, 29% of the 23,919 wild boar carcasses found during passive surveillance activities tested positive for ASFv by PCR, representing 70.4% of the wild boar outbreaks in the EU. In contrast, around 0.4% of the 412,753 hunted wild boar tested positive by PCR, representing 28.4% of the wild boar outbreaks. While the use of serological tests performed in wild boar decreased, the number of PCR tests remained stable. Despite the reduction in the number of outbreaks in domestic pigs, the total size of the restricted zones III in the EU remained stable, with a slight increase in restricted zones II + III in 2024.

Keywords: ASF; epidemiology; monitoring; pigs; surveillance; wild boar.

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Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
European countries that notified ASF outbreaks to the Animal Diseases Information System in 2024.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Spatial distribution of ASF outbreaks among domestic pigs confirmed in 2023 (left) and 2024 (right).
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Spatio‐temporal distribution of ASF outbreaks among domestic pigs in 2024 per quarter per NUTS 3.
FIGURE 4
FIGURE 4
Yearly numbers of ASF outbreaks among domestic pigs notified in ADIS by Member States from 2014 to 2024, in A) establishments with fewer than 100 pigs, B) establishments with 100 pigs or more.
FIGURE 5
FIGURE 5
Temporal distribution of ASF outbreaks in affected Member States (left) and non‐EU countries (right), shown by month of confirmation from 2014 to 2024. The figure differentiates between all domestic pig establishments (A, D), establishments with fewer than 100 pigs (B, E), and those with more than 100 pigs (C, F). Note: Some countries cannot be seen in the figure due to the small number of outbreaks.
FIGURE 6
FIGURE 6
Reported number of domestic pig samples analysed for ASF in the Member States per year, differentiating active from passive surveillance components.
FIGURE 7
FIGURE 7
Reported number of domestic pig samples analysed for ASFv by Member State per year, differentiating active from passive surveillance components.
FIGURE 8
FIGURE 8
Spatial distribution of ASF outbreaks among wild boar confirmed in 2023 (left) and 2024 (right).
FIGURE 9
FIGURE 9
Spatio‐temporal distribution of ASF outbreaks notified among wild boar in 2024 per quarter per NUTS 3.
FIGURE 10
FIGURE 10
Monthly (orange line) and annual (blue bars) numbers of ASF outbreaks among wild boar notified by EU Member States to the Animal Diseases Information System, from 2014 to 2024.
FIGURE 11
FIGURE 11
Monthly proportion of wild boar samples testing positive to ASFv by PCR aggregated by year, for wild boar found dead in the reporting countries with more than 3 years of data reported.
FIGURE 12
FIGURE 12
Average proportion of wild boar samples testing positive to ASFv by PCR, aggregated by calendar month and NUTS 3 region, for wild boar found dead (passive surveillance) in the reporting countries with more than 3 years of data reported. Blue line indicates historical data and green last year's data.
FIGURE 13
FIGURE 13
Spatial distribution of the number of ASF samples tested from wild boar hunted (A) and found dead (B); and the proportion of positive samples from hunted wild boar (C) and found dead (D) by NUTS 3 regions.
FIGURE 14
FIGURE 14
Number of samples from wild boar analysed for ASF across all EU reporting countries per year, differentiating the type of animal sampled.
FIGURE 15
FIGURE 15
Number of samples from wild boar analysed for ASF for each EU reporting country per year, differentiating the type of animal sampled.
FIGURE 16
FIGURE 16
Temporal evolution of the size of the restricted zone III (in orange, approximating the restricted area due to the occurrence of ASF in domestic pigs) and restricted zones III + II (in blue, approximating the restricted area due to the occurrence of ASF in wild boar and/or domestic pigs) in the EU from 2014 to December 2024.
FIGURE 17
FIGURE 17
Temporal evolution of restricted zones III and restricted zones II + III, in square kilometres per Member State from 2014 to December 2024.
FIGURE 18
FIGURE 18
Temporal evolution of the percentage of the country under restriction zones III (left) and restricted zones II + III (right) per Member State from 2014 to December 2024.
FIGURE 19
FIGURE 19
Evolution of the number of establishments with less than 100 pigs (red) and equal or more than 100 pigs (blue)per country, by year (from 2021 when the collection of pig population data started.
FIGURE 20
FIGURE 20
Spatial distribution of ASF impact in 2024 per NUTS 3 region: A) ASF incidence per establishment, B) Proportion of pigs lost due to ASF, C) ASF outbreaks in domestic pigs by size of establishments affected.
FIGURE 21
FIGURE 21
Standardised annual hunting bag in European countries, including both ASF‐affected and free countries. The last panel standardises all data from affected countries to the year of ASF introduction (year 0). The standardised hunting bag was calculated using the z‐score method (subtracting the average of the country over the hunting seasons from each data point and dividing by the standard deviation).
None
FIGURE B.1 Pig population in 2024: (A) Number of pig establishments per NUTS 3 region, (B) Number of pigs per NUTS 3 region.
None
FIGURE B.2 Proportion of ASF positive samples over the tested samples by PCR from wild boar during passive surveillance activities in the ASF‐affected countries. Note: Only ASF‐affected countries that had reported laboratory results to EFSA for more than three consecutive years were included in the analysis.
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FIGURE B.3 Proportion of the pig population kept in small (< 100) and large (≥ 100) establishments, per country for 2024.
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