Main Entry: African swine fever

Function: noun

: an acute highly contagious usually fatal febrile disease that affects only swine (family Suidae), that resembles but is more severe than hog cholera, that is indigenous to Africa where wild swine (as the warthog and bushpig) act as natural reservoirs, that has spread to and caused epidemics in the western hemisphere, and that is caused by a double-stranded DNA virus (species African swine fever virus of the genus Asfivirus, family Asfarviridae) having a capsid with icosahedral symmetry—called also swine fever