Source: ABC News
“One of Giovanni Airoli’s sows tested positive for African swine fever in late August. Within a week, all 6,200 sows, piglets and fattening pigs on his farm south of Milan were slaughtered under strict protocols to halt the disease threatening Italy’s 20 billion euro prosciutto, cured sausage and pork industry. Since swine fever appeared on the peninsula in January 2022, Italy has killed nearly 120,000 pigs — three-quarters of those over the past two months alone as the emergency intensified. … The disease spiked with 24 outbreaks in early September, most of them in Lombardy. The area of greatest concern, where the dissease has been confirmed in domestic pigs, extends 4,500 square kilometers (nearly 1,740 square miles) and includes neighboring Piedmont and Emilia Romagna, a region world renowned for its prized Parma prosciutto.” (10/03/24)