The State Veterinary and Biosecurity Service of Ukraine has given guarantees to Russia and Belarus that the country will not export products from areas affected by outbreaks of African Swine Fever (ASF), the service reported on Wednesday.

The agreements were reached after a video conference with the authorized agencies of Russia and Belarus.

The agreement on the preliminary notification regime for supplies of cargo under the control of the Ukrainian veterinary service to Russia was also reached. The issue of mutual application of the regionalization principle was agreed with Belarus.

During the negotiations, the State Veterinary and Biosecurity Service of Ukraine presented a detailed description of the epizootic situation with ASF in Ukraine, and a set of measures which were taken to prevent the spread of the disease. Ukraine asked other participants of the talks to report on the measures taken by them to prevent the spread of the ASF virus.

As reported, Deputy Head of the State Veterinary and Biosecurity Service Oleksandr Verzhykhovsky said that Kyiv, Poltava, Chernihiv and Sumy regions are of particular concern regarding ASF, and wild boar in these regions are being culled as a result.

An ASF outbreak at the Kalita farm was registered on July 28, 2015. Its pig livestock exceeded 60,000 animals. The farm estimates its losses at about UAH 200 million. This is the first ASF outbreak at an agribusiness in Ukraine.

Since 2012, there have been over 30 outbreaks of ASF in Zaporizhia, Luhansk, Chernihiv, Sumy, Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Rivne and Poltava regions.

The ASF virus is the causative agent of ASF. The virus causes a hemorrhagic fever with high mortality rates in pigs, but persistently infects its natural hosts, warthogs, bushpigs and soft ticks of the Ornithodoros genus, without any visible symptoms. There is currently no vaccine against ASF.