The entry and search, which began around 9 a.m., was ordered by the Instruction Court 2 of Cerdanyola del Vallès, which is handling the case under seal. The main objective is to determine whether the virus that caused the outbreak might have accidentally escaped from this animal health research center, considered a European reference institution.
The officers, including Mossos specialists in environment and consumer affairs, are collecting information regarding biosecurity protocols and the experiments being conducted on the disease. This judicial action comes nine days after the two police forces, investigating jointly, submitted a preliminary report to the courts.
We had reviewed all security controls and had not detected any failure in the biosecurity protocols.
So far, 26 dead wild boars infected with the virus have been located within a six-kilometer radius of the laboratory. Suspicion intensified when analyses determined that the virus strain was not a European variant, but was related to the one detected in Georgia in 2007, a reference virus used in IRTA-CReSA's experimental studies.
Parallel to the judicial inquiry, a committee of scientists appointed by the administrations is also working to clarify the origin of the outbreak. This committee is awaiting the results of the genetic sequencing of the virus used in the laboratory, a test that could be definitive if it matches the strain found in the wild animals.
The African Swine Fever outbreak, detected on November 28 in Cerdanyola del Vallès, does not affect humans but has dealt a severe blow to the Catalan and Spanish pork sector due to international trade restrictions imposed because of its extreme contagiousness among animals.
