ATHENS – It’s not harmful to human but African Swine Fever in a wild boar was found in the northern of Greece, the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) said, in a forest in the Serres region bordering Bulgaria and North Macedonia.

WOAH said the case was the first since early 2020, when Greece faced its first-ever outbreak of African swine fever and Greece’s Agriculture Ministry said measures were being taken to prevent its spread, reported Reuters.

African swine fever is often deadly for pigs and has disrupted pork production and trade in recent years after outbreaks among farm herds in Asia and Europe, where it has spread east and found in Germany and Italy, the site said.

The virus was detected in a dead female wild boar in the municipal unit of Petritsi, in the region of Serres, reports added, and measures taken to ban the movement of pork meat and live pigs from the region.

It’s the first time the disease has been found in the country since February, 2020, just before the Coronavirus pandemic broke out. That happened at a small pig farm in the same region.

The disease is infectious in swine and is transmitted by ticks of the genus Ornithodoros to common warthogs when they feed on the wild animals’ blood, pigs catching it through contact with bodily fluids or carcasses of infected wild boar.

It can cut deep into the animal population that’s a food source and hurt farmers who rely on raising pigs, and limit the ability to sell within the country or even throughout the European Union.