MADRID, Dec 18 (Reuters) – Spanish police searched a state-funded laboratory near Barcelona on Thursday as part of an investigation into the origin of the African swine fever outbreak in the same area, regional police said.
The court-ordered move follows concerns raised this month that the outbreak detected in wild boars could have been caused by a laboratory leak. Genome sequencing showed the strain is similar to that used in research and vaccine development and different from other cases in Europe.
African swine fever is harmless to humans but can be fatal to pigs and wild boars, and spreads rapidly.
Spain is the European Union’s largest pork producer, accounting for about a quarter of the bloc’s output, and the outbreak has threatened exports, prompting authorities to impose movement restrictions and step up efforts to reassure trading partners.
Police said the search at the Centre for Research in Animal Health (Cresa) was ordered by a local investigating judge and forms part of preliminary proceedings that have been declared secret.
The centre did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Cresa has told the news verification website Maldita.es it had found no evidence of being the source of the outbreak.
The outbreak, Spain’s first since 1994, has been detected only in wild animals in the Collserola hills outside Barcelona, with no cases reported on farms.
Authorities have discovered the virus in 26 wild boar carcasses in the six km (four-mile) confinement area imposed by authorities after the outbreak. Cresa is located within the same area.
(Reporting by Jesus Calero, editing by Andrei Khalip and Ed Osmond)
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