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Swine fever may affect millions of people in Indonesia
The African swine fever (ASF) epidemic in Asia is becoming an increasingly large problem
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he African swine fever (ASF) epidemic in Asia is becoming an increasingly large problem. Starting in northern China in August 2018 it has rapidly moved south to Vietnam and onto Luzon Island in the Philippines and reached Timor Leste last October. It has resulted in the death of 350 million domestic pigs, driving up meat prices and causing significant economic problems.
Since late October, a fatal disease has also been killing a large number of domestic pigs in northern Sumatra. The government authorities together with the Food and Agricultural Organization recently confirmed that the disease is caused by ASF.
Pig deaths in northern Sumatra rapidly increased from an initial estimate of 50 animals in late October to 27,000 dead animals in mid-December. This looks like exponential growth. The finding of a dead wild pig in Aceh on Dec. 8 indicates that the disease has now also reached the wild pig population and will most likely spread all across Sumatra.
ASF is a highly contagious viral disease affecting domestic and wild pigs with almost 100 percent case fatality but harmless to humans and other animals. There are a number of reasons why these diseases should be a major concern for the Indonesian government and people.
First, domestic and wild pigs represent a critical food source for more than 50 million people in predominantly-Muslim Indonesia. This includes Christian Dayak groups in Kalimantan who have a preference for hunting the Bornean bearded pig, people in northern and central Sulawesi buying domestic pork and wild meat from Sulawesi warty pigs, the Balinese pork industry, and the many poor, forest-dwelling people of east and west Nusantara, the Maluku and Papua people who rely strongly on wild and domestic pig meat for their protein intake.
If the disease spreads to these parts of Indonesia, the human costs could be very high indeed.
Swine fever is also a concern for wildlife conservation. Not only does it threaten the favored protein source of millions of people, undermining their livelihoods and food security, a swine fever epidemic could also lead to increased hunting pressure on other endangered wildlife species. For example, studies in Papua show that when people cannot hunt pigs, they switch to more endangered species such a tree-kangaroos and cuscuses.
Pigs [...] are nevertheless of major socioeconomic value in many parts of the country [...]
The spread of swine fever in Indonesia also threatens populations of large carnivores. For example, it is a principal prey species for the endemic and critically endangered Sumatran tiger and Javan leopard in Indonesia. The decline of key prey species can push dwindling carnivore populations to extinction, while shifting carnivore diets towards livestock and increasing human-wildlife conflict.
Finally, swine fever poses an imminent threat to Indonesia’s seven species of highly threatened and endemic wild pigs. The highly contagious virus can spread from domestic to wild pigs through direct contact and indirectly via vectors, such as ticks, or through consumption of infected carcasses or pork products. It is therefore quite likely that if the virus spreads to the pork industry across the nation, it will also infect the local wild pig species. Endangered warty pigs of Java, Sulawesi and Bawean and babirusa could be badly affected.
We urge the government of Indonesia to put further effective measures in place to prevent the epidemic from spreading from North Sumatra to the rest of the nation. We advocate for clear government instructions regarding monitoring, reporting and sampling of all suspicious deaths of domestic and wild pigs as an early detection system.
As part of such plans, standard biosecurity measures need to be implemented for domestic pigs, limiting transport of pigs and uncooked pig products or banning such transport completely. There is also an urgent need to reduce exposure to infectious carcasses. Carcasses need to be burned or buried deeply in leak-proof pits that cannot be dug up by wild pigs.
Pigs may not be the most animals in predominantly Muslim Indonesia, but they are nevertheless of major socioeconomic value in many parts of the country, and Indonesia is also exceptional in the world for the number of endemic and threatened wild pig species. It is important that national government takes this outbreak seriously.
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Erik Meijaard is director of Borneo Futures, Brunei Darussalam and former chair of the International Union for Conservation of Nature Wild Pig Specialist Group. Matthew S. Luskin is postdoctoral fellow at the Asian School of the Environment, Nanyang Technological University.
