WHY IT MATTERS: The cases of swine flu set off alarm bells due to the pandemic potential of the swine flu virus if it recombines with a human flu virus, which could happen if a pig is infected with both at the same time.

In a later statement, the Catalan health department said the risk assessment for the population was considered “very low”.

The person infected did not exhibit flu-like respiratory symptoms, it said, and tests on direct contacts showed the virus had not retransmitted.

An earlier report by newspaper El Pais citing Catalan health department sources said the patient — who has since recovered — had no contact with pigs or pig farms, leading experts to conclude it was a human-to-human transmission of the pathogen.

This set off alarm bells due to the pandemic potential of the swine flu virus if it recombines with a human flu virus, which could happen if a pig is infected with both at the same time, the El Pais report added.

The WHO did not immediately reply to a Reuters request for comment.

In 2023, the Netherlands notified the WHO of a confirmed human infection with a swine influenza A(H1N1)v virus in an adult with no history of occupational exposure to animals.

In 2009, the swine flu pandemic in humans infected millions of people. It was caused by a virus that contained genetic material from viruses that were circulating in pigs, birds and humans.

— Reporting by Joan Faus, Emma Pinedo and Olivia Le Poidevin

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The new cases were found near the western towns of El Papiol and Molins de Rei in Barcelona’s metropolitan area, where there are no pork farms, officials said.

WHY IT MATTERS: While Canada is free of African Swine Fever, governments and pork groups have been preparing for the potentially devastating disease, which could close borders to pork exports.

African swine fever is not harmful to humans but spreads rapidly among pigs and wild boar. Outbreaks often prompt countries to restrict their pork imports from countries or regions with active cases.

Spain is the European Union’s leading pork producer, accounting for a quarter of the bloc’s output and with annual exports worth about 3.5 billion euros (C$5.65 billion).

The initial outbreak, Spain’s first since 1994, took place in the Collserola hills to the north of Barcelona, with no cases reported on farms.

“It was an expected outcome that at some point one of the boar would move to the south,” the head of the Catalan agriculture department, Oscar Ordeig, told reporters at a media briefing.

He added that it being a secondary outbreak meant the new measures – including disinfection, collection and management of boar carcasses, drone-based searches and an estimation of wild boar population densities in the infected area – would only affect the two towns.

In total, 155 infected pigs have been found in the Barcelona area, with 13 new cases detected in recent days, he said.

— Reporting by Joan Faus and David Latona

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African swine fever can spread through contaminated feed or feed ingredients.

Canada may recognize parts of Spain as free of ASF, while other zones are considered affected, which could allow Canada to to trade feed ingredients without concerns of spreading disease. However, importers may be subject to extra permitting requirements.

The late November outbreaks near Barcelona represented the first ASF outbreak in the country since 1994. In total, 13 wild boars have tested positive for the virus in the hills outside the city.

ASF is harmless to humans but can be deadly for pigs and wild boars.

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WHY IT MATTERS: African swine fever has been devastating for pork sectors in countries where infections have been found. Wild pigs — which were found to be infected in Spain — are also a potential disease vector of concern for the Canadian hog industry.

Spain, the European Union’s top pork producer, is trying to reassure trading partners after 13 wild boars tested positive for the virus in hills outside the city. The disease is harmless to humans but can be deadly for pigs and wild boars.

Genome sequencing by a Madrid lab showed the strain was “very similar” to one first detected in Georgia in 2007 and now widely used in research and vaccine development, the ministry said. Other cases in Europe belong to a different genetic group.

“The discovery of a virus similar to the one that circulated in Georgia therefore does not rule out the possibility that its origin may lie in a biological containment facility,” the Agriculture Ministry said.

Until now, Catalan officials suspected the virus had spread after a wild boar ate contaminated food, possibly a sandwich brought from abroad by a truck driver.

“The report suggests that it is possible that the origin of the virus is not in animals or animal products from any of the countries where the infection is currently present,” the ministry said.

It did not name any laboratories in its statement. But Catalonia’s top agriculture official, Oscar Ordeig, said the regional government would open an investigation of the state-funded Centre for Research in Animal Health (Cresa).

The centre is located next to the Autonomous University of Barcelona and within the six-km confinement area imposed by authorities after the outbreak. Ordeig said other laboratories could also be investigated.

The World Organization of Animal Health in 2017 designated Cresa as a research centre into swine fevers.

The laboratory did not immediately respond to a request for comment but it told the news verification website Maldita.es it had found no evidence of being the source of the outbreak.

The “Georgia 2007” strain of swine fever spread to Armenia, Azerbaijan, Russia and Belarus and reached eastern EU states in 2014, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

It reached China in 2018, causing huge losses. Chinese pig meat production dropped by 27 per cent in 2019.

— Reporting by Charlie Devereux, Joan Faus and Jesus Calero

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The experts in virology and risk management will visit the affected area in the Bellaterra municipality northwest of Barcelona to survey the situation, provide advice and prepare a follow-up report with recommendations, a European Commission spokesperson said.

Spain is the European Union’s leading pork producer, accounting for a quarter of the bloc’s output, ahead of Germany, with annual exports worth about 3.5 billion euros (C$5.7 billion).

It resumed shipments on Monday from other regions to China, which accounts for almost 42 per cent of Spanish pork exports outside the EU, after Beijing confirmed it would only limit imports from the Barcelona area, in line with a recently-signed agreement that adopted a regional approach to pig disease and trade.

But other countries including Britain, Mexico and Canada have suspended a wide range of pork and by-product shipments from across Spain. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez urged them to continue buying from regions outside the containment zone.

“It is very important to keep markets beyond Europe open for pork exports,” Sanchez said in an interview with the TVE broadcaster.

Outbreaks around Europe

The EU task force was last deployed in September to help monitor a swine fever outbreak in Estonia.

Croatia is also trying to contain an outbreak, while Italy and Germany have recorded cases in recent years that have prompted the culling of pigs.

In France, which is currently free of the disease, the Agriculture Ministry said it will meet with experts later this week to assess the situation and propose any necessary additional surveillance measures.

“Biosecurity measures must be reinforced even more with three countries (Spain, Italy and Germany) around us now affected,” said Anne Richard, director of French pork industry association Inaporc.

Officials suspect the virus may have spread after a wild boar ate contaminated food, possibly a sandwich brought from outside Spain. The virus is harmless to humans, but spreads rapidly among pigs and wild boar, for whom it can be fatal.

It was first detected in two wild boar in a wooded, hilly area outside Barcelona. Seven more boars in the same area also died from the disease, Spain’s Agriculture Ministry said on Tuesday.

Catalan authorities have restricted all leisure activities, including hunting, within a 20 km radius of where the first two pigs were found. A tighter, 6 km perimeter has been fully closed off, with traps installed to catch and test wild boars.

Pig farmers pay the price

Even if the outbreak is contained, the costs for pig farmers in the affected area will be significant, said pork trader Nemesio Sanchez.

“It will be a long winter for Barcelona province, as it is one of the largest exporters of Large White pork and would lose access to China, its major customer,” Sanchez said.

The outbreak could allow U.S. farmers to gain market share.

“With more EU countries finding ASF within their borders, U.S. producers have an opportunity to meet global demand,” U.S. consultancy Steiner Consulting Group said.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture forecasts U.S. pork exports, at 6.96 billion pounds next year, but Steiner Consulting said it could exceed 7 billion pounds if the outbreak in Spain is not contained.

— Additional reporting by Gus Trompiz, Tom Polansek, Corina Pons and Victoria Waldersee.

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Officials suspect the virus may have spread after a wild boar ate contaminated food, possibly a sandwich brought from outside Spain.

WHY IT MATTERS: African swine fever has been devastating for pork sectors in countries where infections have been found. Wild pigs — which were found to be infected in Spain — are also a potential disease vector of concern for the Canadian hog industry.

Authorities confirmed on Friday that two wild boar found dead had tested positive for the disease. A 6-km exclusion zone was set up around the affected area in Bellaterra, on the far side of the Collserola mountain range from the coastal city.

Three hundred Catalan police and rural wardens were deployed to the area in northeastern Spain at the weekend, followed by 117 members of Spain’s military emergency unit on Monday, who will use drones to locate and remove potential infected animals.

“The most likely option … is that cold cuts, a sandwich, contaminated food, could end up in a bin … and then that a wild boar would have eaten it and become infected,” Catalonia’s agriculture minister Oscar Ordeig told local radio on Monday.

African swine fever, while harmless to humans, spreads rapidly among pigs and wild boar, posing a significant economic risk to Spain, one of the world’s largest pork exporters.

The infected area is close to the AP-7 highway, a major transport route linking Spain and France. Eight more suspected cases were being investigated and more cases expected, regional authorities said.

As officials await final test results, Ordeig later told a briefing it was likely that human activity brought the virus to Spain from other parts of Europe, since no infected boars had been found elsewhere in Catalonia or neighbouring France.

A European Commission spokesperson said it would not comment on the source of the outbreak until results of sequencing tests were known. A team of EU veterinarians will visit the area this week to survey, provide advice and prepare a report with recommendations, the spokesperson said.

Spain’s agriculture minister Luis Planas said Saturday that about one-third of the country’s pork export certificates have been blocked as a result of the outbreak, though no farms have tested positive so far. Pork farms within a 20-km radius of the initial infection site are facing operating and sales restrictions.

— Reporting by Nacho Doce and Joan Faus, with additional reporting by Philip Blenkinsop and Emma Pinedo

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The outbreak, the first since 1994, coincides with Spanish efforts to court Beijing and gain market share in the pork sector.

WHY IT MATTERS: African swine fever has been devastating for pork sectors in countries where infections have been found. Wild pigs — which were found to be infected in Spain — are also a potential disease vector of concern for the Canadian hog industry.

But any ban could be limited in scope after China and Spain signed a deal this month that would mean China would only restrict imports from an affected region rather than from all of Spain. Barcelona is in the Catalonia region, which accounts for about eight per cent of the country’s pork farms, according to Agriculture Ministry figures.

Spain is the European Union’s leading pork producer, accounting for roughly a quarter of the bloc’s output, ahead of Germany, with annual pork exports of about 3.5 billion euros (C$5.7 billion).

“It’s not good news. The European market is already struggling after a 20 per cent drop in prices since July,” said Jean-Paul Simier, a meat analyst at French commodities research group Cyclope.

“There is a risk of an embargo against the biggest EU pork exporter, notably in Asia, and China in particular.”

Spain’s farmers’ association Asaja said the sector was ready to face the outbreak, but said authorities needed to address an “out of control presence” of wild animals such as boars and rabbits in rural areas that risked contaminating livestock.

“We have spent years modernizing farms, reinforcing biosecurity and making our operations among the most advanced in the world,” it said.

Spanish pork group Interporc said it was working with Catalan and national authorities on cases limited to wild boar, with a 20-km surveillance zone, showing Spain’s strong animal-health monitoring.

The ministry said it had notified the European Union and activated emergency measures in the affected area, urging pig farms to tighten security measures while investigators try to find the source of the infection.

The virus, which is harmless to humans but deadly for pigs, has been spreading westwards in Europe in recent years.

Germany’s sizeable pork industry has already been rattled, with many overseas countries imposing bans on its pork. And in recent months Croatia has been trying to contain an outbreak.

— Additional reporting by Emma Pinedo, Corina Pons, Gus Trompiz in Paris and Ella Cao in Beijing.

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The deal, announced Friday by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez in Beijing, came after U.S. President Donald Trump hiked tariffs on Chinese imports to 145 per cent, prompting China to raise its own duties on U.S. goods to 125 per cent.

Why it matters: China recently placed 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian pork imports

“In a context of enormous international commercial turbulence, derived from the tariff crisis, we welcome with optimism and hope this new gesture from the Asian giant, which is opening up new options for the supply of pork products,” said the National Association of Spanish Meat Industries (ANICE).

The new deal includes pork stomach exports – a product widely consumed in China but not previously authorised, according to Daniel de Miguel, international manager of Interporc, Spain’s pork producers association.

Analysts regard the deal as a signal Beijing might ease its anti-dumping inquiry into EU pork, launched last year in retaliation for EU tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles.

The investigation could badly impact countries like Spain, the Netherlands and Denmark because a large portion of the EU’s pork shipments to China are pig ears, noses, feet and offal – products rarely consumed in Europe but popular in China.

“This is great news for Spain’s pig farmers,” said Even Rogers Pay, agriculture analyst at Trivium China. “It suggests regulators may delay or ease the pork investigation, as they recently did with brandy.”

China has extended its investigation into EU brandy by three months and is in talks with the 27-nation EU to set minimum prices for Chinese EVs.

“This is part of a pattern of Beijing seeking to stabilize and improve its trade relationships with multiple key trade partners, including the EU,” Pay added.

Trump’s announcement on Wednesday of a 90-day tariff pause for dozens of countries prompted the EU to hold off on retaliatory levies on about 21 billion euros (C$33.1 billion) of U.S. imports set to take effect on April 15.

The bloc is still assessing how to respond to U.S. car tariffs and the broader 10 per cent levies that remain in place.

China imported $4.8 billion (C$6.68 billion) worth of pork, including offal, in 2024 – over half of it from the EU, with Spain leading the bloc in exports by volume.

China’s pork inquiry is due to conclude by June 17, but could be extended.

— Reporting by Ella Cao in Beijing, Emma Pinedo, David Latona and Corina Pons in Madrid

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The case, which argues that the authorities’ inaction in Europe’s largest pork producing country breached national and European law, was filed with the High Court of Justice of the northwestern region – home to about a third of Spain’s pig farms.

ClientEarth, which is supporting the case alongside Friends of the Earth Spain, said in a statement it was the first time a court in Europe will hear a case on the impact of intensive livestock operations on water sources and, consequently, on residents’ human rights.

There are about nine plaintiffs involved, including residents and associations.

People in northwestern Galicia’s A Limia area say life has become “unfeasible” due to hundreds of intensive pig and poultry farms, which they say are putting the health of their community at risk.

The stench, which prevents residents from opening the windows at home, is only part of the problem, they say.

Chemicals such as nitrates are also widely used in industrial farming and often end up in groundwater and water reservoirs.

About 20,000 people live in the affected area.

The case says an “extremely high level of nitrates”, which pose the risk of a number of cancers and other diseases, has been recorded at the local reservoir, where studies have also found antibiotic-resistant bacteria and an extremely toxic substance known as hepatotoxin.

“We are so concerned about the pollution that even the idea of walking near the reservoir has become unfeasible,” Pablo Alvarez Veloso, president of the local neighbourhood association, was quoted as saying in the statement.

The local authority did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The claimants, including Spain’s consumer organization CECU, decided to bring the case to court after officials continued to rubber-stamp new farms despite residents’ repeated attempts to get them to address the agricultural pollution.

“Both the Spanish constitution and European law could not be clearer: public authorities have a legal obligation to protect people from harm – and even from exposure to harmful pollution,” ClientEarth lawyer Nieves Noval said.

— Reporting by Emma Pinedo

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Agricultural ministers from across the European Union pledged to do more to cut red tape and help farmers as they convened in Brussels to discuss the crisis in the sector after weeks of angry protests.

The 27-nation EU has already weakened some parts of its flagship Green Deal environmental policies, removing a goal to cut farming emissions from its 2040 climate roadmap.

But farmers are demanding more.

“We’re here again in Brussels today as farmers because the European Union is not listening to our demands. Our demands are for fair revenue,” said Morgan Ody, general coordinator of farming organization La Via Campesina.

“We produce the food and we don’t make a living. Why is that? Because of free trade agreements. Because of deregulation. Because the prices are below the cost of production. So we demand the EU to move on this.”

On the margins of the Brussels rally, riot police fired water cannon at protesters throwing bottles and eggs, while about 900 tractors jammed parts of the Belgian capital, not far from the cordoned-off area where ministers were meeting.

At a protest in Madrid, farmers from across Spain blew whistles, rang cowbells and beat drums, urging the EU to loosen regulations and drop some changes to its Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) of subsidies and other programs.

“It’s impossible to put up with these rules, they want us to work in the field during the day and deal with paperwork at night – we’re sick of the bureaucracy,” said Roberto Rodriguez, who grows cereal and beetroots in the central province of Avila.

Imports from Ukraine

In Poland, farmers angry with cheap imports from non-EU Ukraine blocked the A2 highway at a border crossing with Germany. The EU decided two years ago to waive duties on Ukraine’s food exports as Kyiv battles a Russian invasion.

“This is a show of common solidarity, that both Polish and German farmers will not allow these goods from Ukraine to continue to enter the European market,” said Adrian Wawrzyniak, a spokesperson for the Solidarity farmers’ union.

The EU aims to find a more effective solution so that farm products from Ukraine go to their traditional markets outside the EU, Belgian Agriculture Minister David Clarinval said after the ministerial meeting.

The agriculture ministers also debated a new set of proposals to ease financial pressures on European farmers, including a reduction in farm inspections and the possibility of exempting small farms from some environmental standards.

They asked the European Commission, the EU’s executive, to make more ambitious proposals on cutting red tape, Clarinval said.

Time at desk

German Agriculture Minister Cem Ozdemir said the EU needed to ensure farmers could earn good money if they opted for biodiversity and green measures, referring to existing EU farm policy as a “bureaucracy monster”.

“The average farmer spends a quarter of their time at their desks,” he said.

The EU has already scrapped over the past weeks a goal to cut farming emissions out of its 2040 climate roadmap, and has also withdrawn a law to reduce pesticides and delayed a target for farmers to leave some land fallow to improve biodiversity.

At the Madrid protest, some farmers said they just wanted to be allowed to use the same pesticides as counterparts outside the EU whose goods are imported into the bloc.

“We want to compete with the same deck of cards,” said Juan Carlos, a 54-year-old sunflower oil producer. “If they use a certain product (to fumigate), I want to be able to use the same one.”

Grievances vary from country to country, and not all farmers call for an end to green rules. La Via Campesina’s Ody called on the EU to set up minimum support prices.

“We are not against climate policies. But we know that in order to do the transition, we need higher prices for products because it costs more to produce in an ecological way,” she said.

–Reporting for Reuters by Kate Abnett, Yves Herman, Christian Levaux, Philip Blenkinsop in Brussels, David Latona in Madrid, Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk, Pawel Florkiewicz and Marek Strzeleck in Warsaw.

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