A Lab, a Boar, and a Biosafety Nightmare: How African Swine Fever Reached Spain’s Doorstep
When African swine fever ASF showed up in wild boar just outside Barcelona in late November, Spanish veterinarians and producers felt the collective stomach drop. Spain had stayed free of ASF despite watching it creep steadily westward across Europe for more than a decade. Then two infected boar carcasses were found only a few hundred meters from one of the country’s highest security animal health laboratories.
Lab Leak or Wild Boar Snack? Spain’s Swine Fever Mystery Has the Pork World on Edge
African swine fever is back in the headlines, and this time the story reads more like a thriller than a textbook case report. Spain, the European Union’s top pork producer, is investigating whether a recent outbreak of swine fever near Barcelona could be linked to a laboratory leak. For veterinary professionals, the situation raises urgent questions about biosecurity, surveillance, and how research and real world disease control intersect.