2. FIRST EMERGENCE OF ASF IN INDIA
An unusual mortality in pigs were reported earlier on January 2020 from Dhemaji, Biswanath, Lakhimpur, Sivasagar, Jorhat and Dibrugarh districts of Assam as well as from West Kameng, Papumpare, Lower Siang, Upper Siang, Lohit, Lepa Rada, East Siang, Namsai and Changlang districts of Arunachal Pradesh. After scrutiny of the clinical case reports, samples were tested for Classical Swine Fever (CSF, an endemic disease) at NERDDL and at College of Veterinary Sciences, Khanapara, Guwahati with support from ICAR-National Research Centre on Pigs, Rani and ICAR Research Complex for NEH Region at Barapani. As the preliminary tests of the tissue samples of pigs from Assam conducted at College of Veterinary Sciences, Guwahati, indicated African Swine Fever (ASF), samples from both Assam and Arunachal Pradesh were sent to the OIE reference laboratory, ICAR-National Institute for High Security Animal Diseases (NIHSAD), Bhopal, where these samples were tested positive for ASF by both Real time PCR and nucleotide sequencing.