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Classical swine fever

What is classical swine fever?

Classical swine fever (CSF) is a very contagious disease of pigs. It is caused by highly infectious viral disease called pestivirus.

The virus can infect pigs via a number of routes:

• respiratory/oral route
• swill feeding (feeding animal material)
• direct contact
• personnel or vehicles bringing disease from another farm
• infected artificial semen insemination.

Clinical signs

The principal feature of this disease is that clinical signs can vary greatly and can range from very severe to very mild or sub-clinical. The pathogenicity of the strain dictates the clinical signs:

• Highly pathogenic strains can kill pigs of all ages.
• Moderate or low-virulent strains are more common and may be virtually unapparent in adult animals and only kills piglets.

CSF in the UK

The last outbreak of CSF in Britain was in 2000 when 16 cases were confirmed in East Anglia.

However, the virus causing CSF is widespread throughout the world. Many countries in central and South East Asia and Eastern Europe have pig and wild boar populations where CSF occur naturally.