Importantly, it doesn't have an effect on human health. To distinguish it somehow from the classical swine fever. And they said: “What happened here?” And that's when they decided to call it African Swine Fever. But it was just in 1921, when they brought white pigs to Africa, to Kenya, when the pigs were starting to die. It is called African Swine Fever because a long time ago there was another swine fever that was affecting the pigs. But the good news is that it doesn't affect humans or other animal species, so it's a virus that affects pigs. So from the Phacochoerus, which is the African wild swine that you can see in the movies, to the wild boar and the pigs. So, African Swine Fever is a viral disease that affects swine, wild and domestic pigs. What is African Swine Fever? It's got a name… obviously, you can guess that it comes maybe from a certain continent way back when, but maybe you just explain a bit of the history of the disease and what it is. Maybe just to put a bit into context what we're talking about here, let's start at the beginning. And you are a very important part of our team here for Animal Health. I am currently responsible for the African Swine Fever topics. So, I was analysing data and doing reports and so on. I came back in 2017 to Europe to work in the World Organization for Animal Health as an epidemiologist. And afterwards, I did some research there on vaccines, risk assessment. And then, when I finished the Ph.D., I moved to the United States because I really wanted to try do research there because it is so different. I got the opportunity to see Africa, Russia and different settings. and travelled around the world seeing that it's a real problem. At that time, nobody cared lot about the disease. One of my professors said: “Ah, would you like to do some research?” I said: “Why not?” And he mentioned this disease and it sounds like “Africa… Cool, let's go there!”. So, I am a Spanish veterinarian and I started working with African Swine Fever when I was still a vet student. Maybe just tell us a bit about yourself, your background in dealing with African Swine Fever and then we go from there. And to join us for this discussion, we have one of our animal health experts here today with us. Today, we're going to be talking about another important animal disease, and that is African Swine Fever or ASF. Another animal health issue actually: You may have listened to the previous podcast we did on Avian Influenza. My name is James Ramsay and today we're going to be talking about animal health. Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of Science on the Menu. Science on the menu, a podcast by the European Food Safety Authority. Competent organisations in Member States.
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