ASF virus genome brought to Belarus from Moldova and Montenegro

The major explanation of the viral genome getting in Belarus is it getting in with imported raw materials. Head of the foreign economic activity at the Ministry of Agriculture and Food of Belarus Alyaksei Bahdanau spoke about this on November 6. 

Earlier, the Russian side detected the ASF virus genome in the products of Orsha, Mahiliou, Minsk and Bobruisk meat processing plants. On October 31 Belarus suspended deliveries of pork and pork products, including finished products manufactured by these companies, to Russia. Later Belarusian sausage with ASF virus was found in Nizhny Novgorod, RIA Novosti reports. 

According to Alyaksei Bahdanau, the fact that genome came to our country with imported pork from Moldova and Montenegro was confirmed by the studies. He noted that in these countries there were no official cases of ASF. Bahdanau did not rule out that the pork was brought to Moldova and Montenegro from Poland or Lithuania, "and then it was marked over." 

To date, all of the meat that was brought into our country from Moldovan or Montenegrin suppliers was seized. "We checks literally every carcass," says Belarusian official. According to him, the appearance of the ASF genome in Belarus is a unique case, because until recently, our country did not import pork. By the way, in the future Minsk plans to stop importing pork. 

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