Border Force officers will be paying special attention to passengers returning from the Winter Olympics in Sochi, in a bid to prevent African swine fever entering Britain in contaminated meat products, according to food and farming minister George Eustice. The discovery of ASF on EU territory two weeks ago has had a marked effect on producers in the bloc.

In a letter to National Pig Association chairman Richard Longthorp—in which he commends the association’s proactive stance on keeping Britain free of imported diseases—he says the Border Force recognises the Winter Olympics as a period of particular importance.

Following the recent discovery that some shops in Russia have been selling meat products contaminated with the African swine fever virus, NPA is particularly concerned about passengers innocently returning with food from Russia and eastern European countries.

African swine fever can survive in raw, cured, cooked and even frozen meats for months, and if any infected meat found its way onto a British pig farm—for instance in a discarded ham sandwich—it would cause havoc in the nation’s pig industry.

African swine fever is harmless to humans but fatal to pigs and if it arrived in this country it would mean the compulsory slaughter of pigs in affected areas and the loss of Britain’s fast-growing pork export market with non-European Union countries.

Noting the recent spread of the virus from Russia to the Ukraine and Belarus, and now across the European Union border into Lithuania, George Eustice has promised that if the situation deteriorates and the virus spreads from wild boar in Lithuania to domestic pigs, Brussels will introduce extra controls and Defra will work with the Border Force “to ensure the travelling public are aware of the restrictions and to undertake checks on passengers”.

NPA has called on Government to introduce in-flight announcements on flights from Lithuania and to introduce leaflets and warning posters at all border posts.

Richard Longthorp welcomed the governemnt’s response to ASF. He said, “We—that is the pig industry and Government—must do all we can to ensure African swine fever, or any other exotic disease, does not get into the United Kingdom.

“The loss of exports valued at £350m would be devastating to the pig industry, a loss to United Kingdom trade, and would undermine all the great work that the pig industry and Defra have put into developing export markets for British pork and high-performance breeding pigs.”

British pig farmers have been on heightened alert ever since African swine fever was carried into Lithuania by wild boar, as many British farms employ east European workers who pose a risk when they return from holidays or receive gifts from home.

NPA is in the process of preparing its own leaflets and posters and will be contacting airlines and airport authorities for help deploying them.