What happens if you consume meat of an animal infected with African swine fever virus?

If you happen to eat meat from an animal infected with African swine fever, nothing will happen to you.

As Vesna Milicevic - a veterinary doctor and head of the Department of Virology at the Scientific Veterinary Institute of Serbia, which is also the national reference laboratory for African swine fever - explained for Telegraf, the disease is not transmitted to humans but is extremely deadly to pigs.

According to her, if you do eat meat from an infected animal, you will not have any problems, and the same goes for cats and dogs who might consume such meat.

"Even hypothetically, if the animal is in the incubation phase and there are no visible symptoms, the meat is completely safe for humans," says the doctor.

As she points out, sick animals should certainly not ne slaughtered, but farmers should take all precautionary measures and send meat for analysis, even if there are no deaths on the farm.

"Humans are absolutely not susceptible to this type of virus, so there can be no danger. The disease is dangerous in that the economic consequences are enormous. There is no cure, no vaccines and animals are being culled and there is no compromise there," she said.