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.