8.10 Disinfection of infected premises
African swine fever virus is extremely stable in the environment and is efficiently transmitted via contaminated blood and meat of infected animals. It can persist in excretions for approximately 3 days at 37°C (3.71 and 2.88 days in faeces and urine respectively) (Davies et al., 2017), 11-22 days in viraemic blood at 37℃ (Plowright and Parker, 1967), over 84 to 155 days in raw meat stored under 4-8℃ (EFSA, 2014), several months in boned meat and years in frozen carcasses at 4-8℃ (Mebus, 1997).
Therefore, decontamination of animal houses, sheds, pens, yards, water-troughs and nearby areas is extremely important to reduce the risk of contaminating the environment with the ASFV. Appropriate disinfectants that are effective in inactivation of ASFV include 2% sodium hydroxide, detergents and phenol substitutes, sodium or calcium hypochlorite (2-3 % chlorine) and iodine compounds (FAO, 1999; DADF, 2020).