Basing on Polish experience of about 5 years (since the presence of the African swine fever (ASF) in this country, starting from February 17th, 2014) and in accordance with literature the importance of the disease in wild boar is charaterised. ASF belongs to the most dangerous, very contagious diseases occurring in domestic swine and wild boar in Eurasia. In Europe, including Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Czech Republic and Belgium ASF is existing at present and was diagnosed for short time in the frame of the Eurasian pandemy. There is a serious concern of spreading of the virus of ASF (ASFV) to other countries of Europe, not only by wild boar. However the reservoir of ASFV in this animal is playing a very important role in the maintenance of the virus and infection of pigs. Long lasting existence of ASFV in the environmnent is connected with the very high resistance to antiviral environmental factors. Following the lack of an effective immunogenic vaccine against ASF the disease can only be controlled by administrative measures. Additionally the important and recommended procedure is the significant reduction of the wild boar population. Probability of eradication of ASFV from wild boar is increased after adding quick carcass removal simultaneously by respecting biosecurity rules. If effectively implemented, fencing is more useful to delineating zones rather than adding substantially to increased efficiency of ASF control. However, segments of fencing will be particularly usefull in theses areas, where carcasses removal or intensive hunting is difficult to implement.

Four commercial disinfectants were chosen for being generally accepted as effective against ASFV. Only two of them, based on sodium hypochlorite and potassium peroxymonosulfate, confirmed their effectiveness in selected concentrations. Taken together, our data supports the effectivenes of chemical disinfectants containing sodium hypochlorite (1%, 0.5% in low level soiling) and potassium peroxymonosulfate (1% in high level soiling). Furthermore, these results highlight the importance of pre-cleaning steps to remove soiling before proper disinfection which improves the effectiveness of tested disinfectants.

The present study attempted to elucidate possible routes leading to the achievement of sero- positive results, among young (aged ≤1 year) wild boar population. In the years 2017-2018, the National Reference Laboratory (NRL) for African swine fever (ASF) in Poland examined nearly 27-thousand wild boar blood samples, collected during an active surveillance of ASF risk zones, for the presence of viral DNA and anti-ASFV antibodies. Out of all the examined samples, 420 were positive. However, in more than half of them (292 samples) antibodies against African swine fever virus (ASFV) were detected, while ASFV DNA was not detected in blood. Out of all 292 seropositive/PCR-negative samples, 126 belonged to young wild boars (aged ≤1 year). For this reason, the NRL in Poland has examined 10 selected seropositive wild boar carcasses to confirm or exclude post-mortem lesions for ASF as well as to investigate the presence of viral DNA in the internal organs. Neither pathological lesions for ASF nor the presence of genetic material of ASFV were found in the examined wild boars. To elucidate this outcomes, following hypotheses about possible reasons of the obtained results were drawn: the presence of convalescent animals, infection of low-virulent ASFV isolate and the vertical transmission of antibodies through the colostrum.