New perspectives for evaluating relative risks of African swine fever virus contamination in global feed ingredient supply chains.

There are no published reports indicating that the African swine fever virus (ASFV) has been detected in feed ingredients or complete feed. This is primarily because there are only a few laboratories in the world that have the biosecurity and analytical capabilities of detecting ASFV in feed. Several in vitro studies have been conducted to evaluate ASFV concentration, viability and inactivation when ASFV was added to various feed ingredients and complete feed. These inoculation studies have shown that some feed matrices support virus survival longer than others and the reasons for this are unknown. Current analytical methodologies have significant limitations in sensitivity, repeatability, ability to detect viable virus particles and association with infectivity. As a result, interpretation of findings using various measures may lead to misleading conclusions. Because of analytical and technical challenges, as well as the lack of ASFV contamination data in feed supply chains, quantitative risk assessments have not been conducted. A few qualitative risk assessments have been conducted, but they have not considered differences in potential scenarios for ASFV contamination between various types of feed ingredient supply chains. Therefore, the purpose of this review is to provide a more holistic understanding of the relative potential risks of ASFV contamination in various global feed ingredient supply chains and provide recommendations for addressing the challenges identified.

Official Feed Control Linked to the Detection of Animal Byproducts: Past, Present, and Future.

In the context of the expansion of the human population, availability of food, and in extension of animal feed, is a big issue. Favoring a circular economy by the valorization of byproducts is a sustainable way to be more efficient. Animal byproducts are an interesting source of feed materials due to their richness in proteins of high nutritional value. Prevention and control efforts have allowed a gradual lifting of the feed ban regarding the use of animal byproducts. Nevertheless, the challenge remains the development of analytical methods enabling a distinction between authorized and unauthorized feed materials. This Review focuses on the historical and epidemiological context of the official control, the evaluation of current and foreseen legislation, and the available methods of analysis for the detection of constituents of animal origin in feedingstuffs. It also underlines the analytical limitations of the approach and discusses some prospects of novel methods to ensure food and feed safety.