Emergency summit: yesterday the President of the Province Andrea Massari summoned all the mayors of the Province for an update meeting on the recent developments in the spread of the swine fever infection in our territory. «The commander of the Provincial Police Andrea Ruffini illustrated the latest updates and described the activities of the Territorial Operational Group, chaired by the director of the Veterinary Service of the Local Health Authority and composed of representatives of the Provincial Police, of the Agriculture, Hunting and Fishing Service of the Rer, of the the parks management body and by the Prefecture itself”, explains Massari.
Which continues: «These are activities aimed at implementing the depopulation plan, drawn up by the GOT himself and implemented through the precious collaboration of the ATCs of the Province, as well as an intense certification activity of the structures and operators under the important biosafety profile. The new EU regulation 2024/1171, issued after the recent discovery of a positive case of a carcass in the Ramiola area, has provided for a decisive expansion of the restriction zones, introducing several municipalities in the ham district into restriction zone I. Zone I is an area of maximum alert but which has no outbreaks of infection. The research activity coordinated by the GOT is at its maximum precisely in these areas, as is the effort required of the ATC bioregulators, trained operators coordinated by the Provincial Police who are working to achieve the important objective of reducing to a minimum the population of potentially means of spreading the infection”.
Thanks to direct resources from the provincial administration and regional funding «we are trying – continues Massari – to cover the out-of-pocket expenses for the implementation of depopulation activities. Since the beginning of the year, even though decisive control actions had already been implemented during 2023, around 430 wild animals have been killed in various areas of the province, both in territories usually hunted and in protected areas: this thanks to more than 250 interventions involving around 1,000 bioregulators, as well as operators from the provincial police service and the protected areas management body. The number of infected animals found or killed in our province since the beginning of the year is 52.”
The meeting continued with the illustration of the limitations of activities in the restriction zones, for which the mayors of the areas concerned have demonstrated great responsibility and effectiveness, in particular taking advantage of the support provided by the Province relating to the need for tabulation of the rural areas in infected areas. «The attention is at the highest possible levels», confirmed Massari: «Specific research activities have been started thanks to the support of the hunting and fishing associations already supporting the Provincial Police in carrying out hunting and fishing surveillance activities.
The provincial police commander Ruffini underlined «the great collaboration within the local GOT, identifying the group as the only point of reference for information and clarifications on the application of the limitations. Our community is called to make a great effort that has no political colour: now is the time to work with maximum commitment to limit the spread of the infection, protecting farms in particular.”
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