The action plan for 2019-2021 the prevention of African swine fever,published in the state journal, also provides for other measures such as extra road checks on the transport of boars and hunted species and the reduction of boar populations.

The plan provides for a national census of boars and the implementation of a plan to correct the density of populations, in collaboration with hunting associations, an increase in checks on the cleaning and disinfection of vehicles, and extra checks at slaughterhouses, as well as greater surveillance of sanitary conditions in the hunting sector.

In the bill, the minister of agriculture, Luís Capoulas Santos, recalls that African swine fever "continues to expand worldwide with the occurrence of new outbreaks" in Europe, among both farmed pigs and boars.

"Currently this disease affects nine Member States of the European Union, specifically Belgium, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Italy, Hungary, Poland and Romania," the text points out, describing as "also worrying" the situation with regard to African swine fever among farmed pigs in Asia, in particular in China, Mongolia, Vietnam and recently in Cambodia, Eastern European countries and beyond. In Africa the disease is endemic.

The risk of the virus spreading in Portugal is associated with several factors, such as the entry of infected domestic and wild pigs, contaminated game products or trophies, or contact with food and other materials contaminated with the virus, such as vehicles, equipment, instruments, clothing and footwear.

In Portugal, the information provided by hunting authorities to the Institute for the Conservation of Nature and Forests confirms a rising population of wild boar over the last 20 years, a wide distribution of the species across the country, with a particularly high incidence in some areas of the interior, as well as in the more mountainous areas of the centre and south, as noted by a 2018 study from the European Food Safety Agency.

Portugal is currently classified as free of African swine fever, and its food and veterinary authorities have contingency plans to cope with any outbreak.

The virus was widespread in Portugal for 30 years, but was eradicated in 1996, with the last hotspot detected in 1999.