Overview

• Authorities have confirmed five fresh wild boar deaths from African Swine Fever in the Sauerland region of North Rhine-Westphalia.
• Agriculture Minister Silke Gorißen has urged hunters to collect blood samples from hunted boars and swab samples from carcasses to support a new monitoring effort.
• All districts and independent cities are supplying sampling kits and collecting specimens, with the state covering all testing costs.
• Wild boar hunting is now permitted year-round across North Rhine-Westphalia, with an exception for the officially designated ASF-infected zone.
• African Swine Fever poses no health risk to humans but is almost always fatal for domestic and wild pigs, threatening the region’s pork industry.