Surveillance and control of African swine fever in the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, March-May 2020: A multi-country e-survey

Background Stringent COVID-19 public health and social measures (PHSMs) have challenged the work of animal health professionals, especially in the early phase of the pandemic. We aimed to describe the potential impacts of COVID-19 PHSMs on the surveillance and control of African swine fever (ASF) in Europe, assess how professionals engaged in these activities perceived the impact of the COVID-19 crisis, and identify potential areas of improvement. Methods An online questionnaire was proposed via email between 9 December 2020 and 22 January 2021 to 179 professionals engaged in ASF-related activities in Europe and Eastern neighbouring countries. The questionnaire contained questions pertaining to ASF surveillance and control activities between March and May 2020, respondent´s perception of the impact of COVID-19 PHSMs on these activities, and respondent´s opinion on potential improvements to prepare future crises. Economic and sanitary variables where used to describe the national contexts over the study period. <br> Geographic location of data collection Armenia, Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden. File description <br> <strong>Raw data generated through this study</strong><br> Response to the e-survey (anonymized). File name: [anonymized_questionnaire_asf.csv] <strong>Other files generated for the purpose of the study</strong><br> [export_training2.csv]: Answers of the respondents regarding training activities, manually formatted. [coded_points1-3_v2.csv]: Themes and sub-themes resulting from the thematic analysis. [Europe_countries1.csv]: List of the countries of origin of the survey participants. <br> <strong>Codes</strong> File name: [ASF_e-survey_Codes_v3.Rmd] Description: Script to compute analyses and visualizations. Codes were developed using Windows 10 operating system, R (4.0.3), and RStudio (1.2.5033).