STAVROPOL, November 1 (RIA Novosti) - Vets in southern Russia's Stavropol Territory plan to cull a total of 12,000 pigs in an area suffering from an outbreak of swine fever, a local veterinary chief said on Saturday.
"Over 8,000 pigs have been culled at the moment," Vasily Serdyukov said.
Outbreaks of the highly contagious virus, which was first registered in 1903 in South Africa, are rare outside the region, but 5,000 pigs were culled or died from the virus in the summer in Russia's North Caucasus republic of North Ossetia.
The virus does not pose a threat to humans.
